








^. 







o 






AMERICA, ASIA AND 
THE PACIFIC 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE RUSSO- 
JAPANESE WAR AND ITS RESULTS 



BY 

WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND, Ph. D., 

Author of: "Russia: Her Strength and Her Weakness" 

"Germany: The Welding of a World Power" 

"The Kaiser's Speeches" etc., etc. 



WITH THIRTEEN MAPS 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1904 



LIBRARY nf CONGRESS 


Two Cooles Received 


JUN 18 1904 


A Oooyrtjrht Entry 
GLASS CL XXo. No. 
COPY B ' 



Copyright, 1904, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Published June, 1Q04 






THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



PREFACE 

Why add still another to the numerous books bear- 
ing more or less directly upon the present conflict? 
The answer is that the author does not merely aim to 
lay bare the causes which have led to the war between 
Russia and Japan, the elements in either power making 
for success or failure, and the probable results of the 
war, particularly in so far as they are likely to affect 
our own interests, but that the book has also a wider 
scope. 

The war represents but the initial stage in an inter- 
national struggle throwing deep shadows before, a 
great struggle, but one which, there is every reason 
to hope, may be fought solely with the weapons of 
peace. But it will be, in any event, a long contest, 
and will involve, not two nations, but all the leading 
nations of the globe. Its ultimate outcome will settle, 
probably for centuries to come, the question of pre- 
dominance, commercial and political, among the civ- 
ilised powers. This coming conflict will be, in a word, 
for the mastery of the Pacific. 

That the Pacific during this century is bound to 
become what the Atlantic was during the eighteenth 
and nineteenth, and the Mediterranean during the 
twenty-five centuries preceding, is one of the author's 
chief contentions. The argument upon which it rests 
he deems irrefutable. ^ 

Of almost equal interest is the question how well 
or ill prepared for this impending conflict is each of 

iii 



iv Preface 

the competitors. Investigation in this line forms 
another part of the book, and perhaps one of more than 
transitory value. 

It is the writer's firm belief that the United States 
is the nation best equipped for the coming race in the 
Pacific, and the chief reasons for it, which suggested 
themselves, are cited more or less fully. But the fact 
is also dwelt upon at some length that American ex- 
pansion in the Pacific, immensely favoured as it will 
be by the opening of the Panama Canal, is not a mere 
whim, not a thing merely desirable, but something 
absolutely necessary to safeguard our further national 
development, and to preserve us from the curse of ill- 
balanced production — generally called overproduction 
— and all its attendant evils. 

With the exhaustion of our free arable lands, and 
with American re-emigration across the Canadian 
border, this nation has entered on a new phase of ex- 
istence, has lost the distinguishing trait of youth and 
risen to full maturity. That condition entails new 
burdens and responsibilities. Hereafter this nation 
will furnish emigrants in increasing number. 

On the other hand, the equipment of our chief rivals 
in the Pacific — Great Britain and her colonies, Ger- 
many, France, Japan, and Russia — is also carefully 
examined, and points of strength or weakness are set 
down. 

Another topic discussed in the book is the prospec- 
tive ownership of that rich inheritance — the Dutch 
East Indies. It is one to which, so far, little attention 
has been paid in this country. 

China and South America, prospectively our great- 
est markets in the very near future, are considered at 
considerable length; and the folly of neglecting the 



Preface v 

magnificent opportunities they offer American enter- 
prise is pointed out. 

From all the data thus marshalled the deduction has 
been drawn, that if the people of the United States 
use but wisely and promptly the surpassing natural 
advantages kind fate has thrown into their lap, victory 
cannot fail them in the end. This nation will play in 
the Pacific the dominant note in the concert of the 
great powers. 

It may not be superfluous to mention that much of 
the general argument of the book is based on both 
geographic and historical foundations. In every in- 
stance, the greatest care has been taken to derive 
the statistics from the latest and most authoritative 
sources. 

W. v. S. 

New York, May, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



THE WAR AND ITS OUTCOME 



I. Elements in the Present War 

II. Military Notes .... 

III. Opinions of Experts 

IV. A Triumph of American Diplomacy 
V. The Integrity of China 

VI. Results of the War to This Nation 



THE FAR EAST 



3 

M 

23 
32 
46 

52 



VII. The New Japan 69 

VIII. Awakening China 86 

IX. What China Means for This Nation . . .112 

X. Some Little-known Facts about Russia . .128 

THE PACIFIC AND THE PANAMA CANAL 

XL The Panama Canal 143 

XII. South America Our Natural Market . . 162 

XIII. The Pan-American Railway 189 

XIV. The Pacific Hereafter 199 

XV. The Dutch East Indies 214 

THE RACE IS TO THE WISE 

XVI. Our Equipment for the Race . 231 

XVII. Rivals in the Pacific— British . . . .251 



Vlll 



Contents 



CHAPTER 






XVIII. 


Rivals in the Pacific— German, French, 
Japanese 


AND 


XIX. 


American Supremacy and the Slav 




XX. 


Life under New Conditions 

Conclusion 

Appendix .... 

Index .... 





266 
285 
297 
313 
3i9 
325 



LIST OF MAPS 

PAGE 

Pacific Ocean (Front Cover) 2 

corea and the neighbouring parts of japan . . .21 

Formosa Island 79 

China and Asiatic Russia 95 

Panama and Vicinity 154 

South America (Northern Half) -170 

South America (Southern Half) 173 

Dutch East Indies 215 

Alaskan Coal Fields 234 

Hawaii 237 

Philippines 239 

Rainfall Map of Australia 261 

Plan of Tsing Tao 276 



IX 



THE WAR AND ITS OUTCOME 



AMERICA, ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 

CHAPTER I 
ELEMENTS IN THE PRESENT WAR 

The great drama which is now being played in the 
Far East is the prologue to a far longer and more 
important one, involving the mastery of the Pacific. 
As such, no nation on earth is interested in it in the 
same degree as the United States. It is necessary to 
keep this all-important fact constantly in mind. 

To express the matter in another way, Russia and 
Japan, though their struggle be a titanic one, form 
a vanguard of the greater armies made up by the civ- 
ilised nations of the globe. The coming strife for 
commercial and political supremacy on that vast high- 
way, which the irony of fate has dubbed the " Pacific " 
Ocean, though it may not be waged with powder and 
shot, will be the most gigantic the world has ever seen. 
And — let us emphasise this again — it is the American 
people who have most at stake in it. In a sense it is 
quite true that Japan is fighting the American's battle. 
The " Jap," our pupil, in this war stands for most of 
the things this nation is striving for. 

But, very naturally, Japan has interests exclusively 
her own. A time may come when her interests will 
clash with those of America. She is ambitious, very 
ambitious, and though quite recently a leading Jap- 



4 The War and Its Outcome 

anese, Jihei Hashiguchi, in speaking of his country's 
relations with the United States, compared them to the 
" filial affection of a child " — and in this probably was 
perfectly in the right — that is not saying that this 
feeling is not subject to change. 

Certainly Japan owes her awakening from many 
centuries of slumber to Commodore Perry, President 
Pierce, and the United States. This country first un- 
bound the cerements which had held Japan in her 
living tomb, isolated and estranged from the entire 
world. It helped the Land of the Rising Sun to enter 
the family of nations as a full-fledged member. It 
guided the halting steps of the new sister nation in its 
path onward and upward. It opened wide the portals 
of American educational institutions, and it inaugu- 
rated a policy of mutual friendship and mutually 
profitable commercial intercourse. 

But, after all, a nation's duty is first to herself. 
This applies both to the United States and Japan, and 
it is quite conceivable that the future holds in store 
situations differing so much from the present one as 
to make of Japan one of this country's most assiduous 
rivals, possibly a foe. 

As to Russia, the case stands very differently. Once 
Americans ventured forth on the Pacific, Russia in- 
evitably became their enemy. It was Captain Mahan 
who first pointed this out clearly in one of his most 
thoughtful books. But it requires no laboured argu- 
ment to show this. Russia's coast on the Pacific is 
to-day longer than that of the United States at the 
other extreme. Russia's aim is to be and remain the 
leading Pacific power. She is the archenemy of the 
" open door " in China as well as in her own posses- 
sions. Economically she is monopolistic and given 



Elements in the Present War 5 

over to fiscalism. The spread of her suzerainty, the 
enlargement of her " spheres of interest," mean the 
narrowing of every kind of opportunity for the United 
States. Conversely, the growing power of the United 
States along the Asiatic coast of the Pacific is tanta- 
mount to a diminution of Russia's power. All this 
without considering at all the deep racial antipathy 
between the Slav and the Anglo-Saxon, the irrecon- 
cilable differences in the conception of life and its 
ideals, in government and policy. 

It is useless to mince matters. Let us look the facts 
squarely in the face. Russia is this country's foe and 
will remain so, all sentimental pleadings to the con- 
trary. She could afford to be the friend of the United 
States so long as the latter was no world-power, and 
was, furthermore, on more or less strained terms with 
England, Russia's most dangerous rival during the 
whole course of the nineteenth century. This fact is 
so self-evident that it is strange indeed Americans as 
a body have not yet grasped it. Russia's friendly 
policy during the great Civil War, her sale of Alaska, 
her assurances of friendship on many occasions in the 
past, all explain themselves in that way. To keep the 
two great English-speaking races apart was the task 
of deep wisdom for Russian statesmanship. 

Since John Bull and Uncle Sam have buried the 
hatchet and forgotten old grievances in a sincere rec- 
onciliation, and more particularly since the younger 
one of these two blood relations has started out on a 
vigorous career of his own in the line of conquest and 
colonisation within easy reach of Russia's own Far 
East possessions, with all that this implies, the lion 
and the lamb can no more lie down in peace together 
than can Russia and the United States. For to do so 



6 The War and Its Outcome 

would mean the relinquishment of what each of these 
two nations considers its " manifest destiny/' 

We see, then, that the war between Russia and 
Japan is fraught for this country with much deeper 
meaning than many seem to suspect. 

When first the news flashed over the cable that hos- 
tilities had actually been begun by Japan in her dashing 
naval attack on the fleet lying within the shelter of the 
harbour and the forts and coast batteries of Port 
Arthur, early in the morning of February 8th, just 
three days after the rupture of diplomatic relations 
between the two countries, the world stood agape. 
Little Japan, holding a territory so infinitesimally 
small in comparison with mammoth Russia, with a 
navy of yesterday's creation, and an army still in 
process of formation, to beard the bear and his cubs in 
his very lair! Why, to nine out of ten the thing 
seemed absurd, even more absurd than Japan's easy 
victory over China in 1894. 

But closer reflection modified this first view consid- 
erably. It is true that after a month of hostilities the 
majority of military experts still clung in the main to 
their first views. On this side of the water, such good 
judges as Generals Francis V. Greene and Joseph 
Wheeler pronounced in favour of ultimate victory for 
Russia. But General Nelson A. Miles was non-com- 
mittal, and General Daniel E. Sickles expressed the 
emphatic opinion that Russia would soon " lie down." 

Yet reliable figures show us the following relative 
strength for Russia and Japan : 

Naval. — Russia, with a battle fleet of 22 vessels 
against a Japanese battle fleet of 12, an enormous dis- 
parity. The comparative list is the following: 



Elements in the Present War 

RUSSIA 



Names 


Tons 


Launched 


Nominal 
Speed— Knots 


Borodino . . . . ) 
Alexander III . . . ) 








13,400 






Kniaz Suvoroff . . . ) 
Slava j" 








13,100 






Tavrichesky . . . ) 








Retwisan . . . . >- 


12,700 






Tsarevitch. . . . ) 




CO 


O 


Tri Svititelia . . -1 




o> 


tJ 


Petropavlovsk . 




1 




Poltava .... 




Sevastopol .... 


10,000 


00 


M 


Gheorgi Pobiedononostseff y 


to 


c 


G 


Navarin .... 


1 1 ,000 


a> 


<D 


Tchesme .... 




£ 


£ 


Ekaterina II 






PQ 


Sinope . . . .J 




PQ 


Emporor Alexander II . 1 








Emporor Nicholas I . 








Dvenadsat 


8,000 






Apostolov . 


to 






Sissoi Veliky 


9,000 






Rostislav . 






1 



JAPAN 



Names 


Tons 


Launched 


Nominal 
Speed— Knots 


Shikishima 
Asahi . 
Mikasa 
Hatsuse 








1 

1 

\ 
I 


15,200 


CO 

O 


T 


a 



a 



Yashima 
Fuji . 
Chin-Yen 
Tokiwa 








1 
i 


7,325 



00 

CO 

C 
O 
Qi 


Asama 
Idzumo 
Iwate . 
Yakumo 








} 


9450 

to 
9,800 


PQ 


-t-> 
4) 

PQ 



Officers and men in the Russian navy, 60,000. Japanese, 28,000. 



8 The War and Its Outcome 

The total naval strength of the two opponents 
showed this disparity still more glaringly. The Rus- 
sian vessels outnumbered the Japanese almost three to 
one. In the matter of torpedo boats and destroyers, 
Russia, on paper, was particularly favoured. 

In reality, however, Russia at the start was in far 
worse condition than her doughty little opponent, for 
her navy necessarily was scattered. Part of it was 
in the Baltic ; another part guarded the Black Sea, and 
only the third part, though rather the largest of the 
three, was in Far Asian waters. 

True, Russia had prepared herself in a measure for 
serious complications in Far Asia. She had sent, for 
eight months preceding the outbreak of the war, 
troops, ships, and provisions to Vladivostok, Dalny, 
and Port Arthur, and she had purposely magnified her 
forces there and in the whole of Manchuria and neigh- 
bouring Siberia. Russia, in other words, had been 
playing a big game of bluff with little Japan, and had 
never for a moment taken into consideration the pos- 
sibility that her hand might be called. Thus it was 
that she was taken by surprise, unprepared, and wo- 
fully behind in all the essentials of ready and efficient 
warfare. 

As to the respective land forces, Japan was over- 
matched far more prodigiously than in the matter of 
sea strength. 

General Miles computes the Japanese army at 
a round 600,000, and the Russian at 1,700,000. With 
the reserves of every kind, he calculates that Japan 
could probably mobilise 1,000,000 men and Russia 
4,000,000. In point of efficiency, the balance is some- 
what in favour of Japan. Her army is more active, 
enterprising, better trained, and better disciplined than 



Elements in the Present War 9 

is the Russian. Her general staff is, man for man, 
brainier and more resourceful than Russia's. " Jap " 
and Russian have demonstrated their prowess on many 
well-fought fields. Either of the two possesses great 
endurance and sterling fortitude; either, too, is inured 
to hardship and scant fare, though the Russian is the 
heavier feeder, and is much more prone to physical 
ailments and serious disease on Chinese soil than is 
the Japanese. This latter fact was abundantly proved 
during the Boxer uprising, when the rate of mortality 
and illness among the Japanese troops was the lowest 
of all, the American soldiers coming next, the Eng- 
lish and Continental troops following, — the rate for 
them being about the same, — and the Russians show- 
ing the highest figures, their rate — about twelve per 
cent. — being just eight times higher than that of the 
"Japs." 

Students of military history need scarcely be told 
that disease works generally more havoc in armies 
in the field than does the bullet. To confine our illus- 
tration only to the more recent wars, in the Crimea 
the French lost 236 men from sickness to 64 from 
wounds in each 1000. The death-rate of the English 
was 179 from sickness and 47 from wounds. In 
Mexico the French lost in every 1000 of their troops 
140 from disease and only 49 from wounds. In the 
Russo-Turkish war the Russians lost, per 1000, 113 
from sickness and 49 from wounds. The losses in our 
own Civil War during two years — June, 1861, to June, 
1863 — were 53.2 per 1000, of which 8.6 were from 
wounds and 44.6 from sickness. In the Boer war, 
while the figures are not at hand in complete form, it 
is well known that sickness was vastly more fatal than 
Boer marksmanship, deadly as that was admitted to be. 



io The War and Its Outcome 

The Russian troops in Manchuria are peculiarly 
susceptible to sickness. They have been enfeebled by 
the rigours of a hard winter, with incomplete housing, 
insufficient food, and probably a total disregard of the 
hygiene of the person. Most of them are ignorant 
peasants who have never learned to take care of them- 
selves at home, and still less afield. The medical staff 
is not as efficient as might be. It is a safe prediction 
that ten will die or be incapacitated by sickness for 
every one who is killed or incapacitated by Japanese 
bullets. 

Indeed, the precursor of the ravages to be expected 
from disease among the Russians has already made 
its appearance. News recently came from Harbin, 
the military centre of Russia in Manchuria, that that 
place has already become a hotbed of typhus and 
other zymotic diseases, a class of physical ills easily 
preventable under rigid official sanitation, but not 
under prevailing war conditions. 

The men from Japan are spare eaters and sparer 
drinkers, their regular diet both in peace and war 
being fish and rice, and their commissariat is cor- 
respondingly easy to handle. This fact gives them 
an enormous advantage in a war with any western 
nation, Russia included. 

Nevertheless, the chances of Japan in a land war 
with Russia seemed slim indeed. It looked as if the 
overwhelming numbers of Russia's armies would 
crush her. 

But here again circumstances must be taken into 
account. Though Japan in this war avowedly fought 
for her very existence, she would not have gone into 
it if the disparity were as great in actual numbers as 
at first sight it seemed. 



Elements in the Present War 1 1 

There were several very important compensating 
features for Japan. The most important is the fact 
that while in either Corea or Manchuria she is still 
very near to her basis of supply, and, in any case, is 
fighting in a congenial climate, Russia is from 5000 
to 6000 miles away from her sources of sustenance. 
Again, the sea route being closed to her by the vig- 
ilance of the Japanese navy, everything Russia needs 
for her army in the way of supplies, ammunition, 
provisions, tents, and other field equipments, as well 
as reinforcements, must come overland, and by the 
one line at her disposal — the Transsiberian Railroad 
and its two Manchurian branches. This ramshackle 
affair of a railroad, though built at an expense of 
$750,000,000, — a single-track road, resting at many 
places on badly graded and imperfectly secured beds, 
— is the one hope of Russia in this war. Whenever 
and wherever it fails, she is temporarily hampered and 
outdone. As an American writer of distinction graph- 
ically put it, this thin line of steel means Russia's 
victory or defeat. 

As a striking illustration of the insufficiency of the 
Transsiberian Railroad at this present juncture, the 
leading French military journal, La France Militaire, 
on information furnished it from the Russian general 
staff, makes the following statement: 

" The Russian army assembled by April 6 on the 
Mukden-Harbin road amounted to 260,000 men, and 
at that date was to be shortly brought to 300,000. 

" Now, such an army involved, according to the ac- 
cepted military computation, and on territory such as 
this sparsely settled one of Manchuria, 100,000 horses. 
Merely to feed these men and animals required a 
supply of 1600 tons of food and forage a day. To 



12 The War and Its Outcome 

transport this amount there were needed six trains 
of from 30 to 35 each of the kind of freight-cars in 
use on the Transsiberian Railroad." 

And this, it appeared, was very nearly the capacity 
of the road, and to transport and deliver this amount 
every day it was necessary that there should be no 
movement of troops or other passenger traffic in the 
same direction to interfere with the process" of supply. 

That is to say: it was, theoretically, all the road 
could do to supply such an army as Russia was then 
preparing, and it was pretty clear that her prepara- 
tions were not excessive, compared with the number 
of the Japanese troops the Russians were reckoning 
to encounter. There was absolutely no " factor of 
safety " allowed for accidents and partial disablements 
on the railroad. 

True, the Transsiberian Railroad, it was given out 
by Russian authorities, was not their only source of 
supply. For, according to these authorities, there 
were at that time considerable accumulations of provi- 
sions at Port Arthur, Vladivostok, Mukden, and Har- 
bin. But these statements were clearly exaggerated. 
As a matter of fact, the supplies at those points were 
insignificant, when such vast masses of men and beasts 
were concerned. 

As to Manchuria and the maritime province of Rus- 
sian Siberia, neither produces agricultural supplies for 
export. In other words, they raise only sufficient for 
their own populations. 

But putting the best face upon the matter, certain 
things are beyond dispute. First, the Russian forces 
in the Far East at the outbreak of the war were much 
smaller than had all along been stated; instead of 
200,000 or 250,000, as claimed, they were barely 



Elements in the Present War i 3 

50,000, and of this number only about one-half was 
really available against the enemy. Second, from 
three to four months had to elapse before Russia, by 
her sole available means of communication, — that is, 
the Transsiberian Railroad, — could concentrate on the 
theatre of war an army large enough to face in the 
field such an army as Japan herself could assemble 
within one-half of that time, either on the Liao Tung 
Peninsula or in Corea. So that for quite a length 
of time Japan enjoyed the immeasurable advantage, 
provided she bestirred herself, of having double or 
treble the number of fighting men in the field that Rus- 
sia could muster, and this despite the enormous supe- 
riority in numbers that Russia could boast of in theory. 
Now, as to this point of speed on Japan's part, all 
the attendant circumstances are not plain at this writ- 
ing. It is certain that her navy, compact though 
small, splendidly officered and manned, was ready at 
the hour when the scale had tipped in favour of war. 
The facts in this respect are known to the world. In 
the roadstead of Chemulpo, Corea, two fine Russian 
battleships were sunk by Japanese broadsides. At 
Port Arthur Admiral Togo inflicted even worse 
damage upon the Russian fleet by means of his swift 
little torpedo boats. Again and again this same un- 
daunted naval hero went to the charge at Port Arthur, 
daringly yet cautiously sacrificing men and treasure 
in the attempt to " bottle up " that chief Russian 
stronghold in the disputed territory. Not for a mo- 
ment has Japan's navy failed in its duty; the same 
dash, valour, and shrewdness have characterised every 
move of Japan's fleet since the war clouds burst. In 
her navy, at any rate, Japan has demonstrated su- 
perior mettle and skill. 



CHAPTER II 
MILITARY NOTES 

As to the Japanese army, it did not suffer in its 
operations from an insufficient Transsiberian Rail- 
road, but the obstacles it had to contend with in 
making its way to the mainland were, nevertheless, 
of a similar character, and in some respects they were 
even harder to overcome. 

Weather was one of them. Lack of sufficient com- 
munications was another. Beyond the middle of 
March the harbour points on the Corean and Man- 
churian coasts, where landings could be effected, were 
ice-bound. The winter was of unusual severity and 
length, even in the more southern latitudes of Japan 
and Corea; and when thawing set in, the poor roads 
of the country became morasses, scarcely passable. 
Add to this that Japan has only 5015 miles of rail- 
road all told within her island empire, composed as it 
is of over 4000 separate islands, with few lines pierc- 
ing the mountainous interior. Thus, the amassing 
and concentrating of large armed forces, particularly 
in the dead of winter, was a matter of extreme diffi- 
culty for Japan. And then to send these troops from 
their native islands over various arms of the Japan Sea 
to the mainland presented another series of extreme 
difficulties. 

This is a statement of the chief obstacles Japan had 
to surmount in making her army available for fight- 

14 



Military Notes 15 

ing purposes at the theatre of war. Whether they 
alone account for the failure of Japan to display the 
same swiftness and skill in utilising her land forces 
that she had shown in handling her navy, is at this 
hour matter of conjecture. 

Whatever the reasons, in any event the fact remains 
that Japan missed the golden opportunity fate had 
thrown in her way at the opening of the war. It was 
Baron Hayashi, Japan's minister in London, who 
made the broad statement shortly after the beginning 
of the war, that his country meant to win by deliver- 
ing swift, powerful blows at the enemy. If so, that 
chance has gone. If Japan had concentrated an army 
of, say, 150,000 men, in Lower Manchuria and North- 
ern Corea, between February 5 and April 5, she could 
have driven out the Russians from all the points of 
vantage in dispute; could have seized Port Arthur 
from the land side, and could have fortified her land 
position in such a manner as to render it almost im- 
possible at a later date for Russia to oust her, always 
providing that Japan still maintained her naval supe- 
riority. Whatever the cause, she did not make the 
land operations, and by this omission rendered her 
task doubly and trebly difficult. 

One great disadvantage in a military sense under 
which Japan is labouring is her lack of sufficient 
cavalry. Russia in this respect is exceptionally well 
equipped. Her supply of Cossacks, irregular and 
very hardy cavalry, is practically exhaustless. From 
the Cossack settlements in Western and Eastern 
Siberia alone she can draw some twenty-five regi- 
ments of this class of troops. And the Cossack with 
his tireless native horse is an excellent man for cam- 
paigning in Manchuria or Corea. 



1 6 The War and Its Outcome 

Japan, as her great military organiser, Fieldmar- 
shal Yamagata, has stated, has scarcely any use for 
cavalry at home. The difficult and mountainous 
nature of the main islands forbids the employment of 
cavalry on a large scale. Besides, the native horse 
of Japan does not make a good cavalry mount, and 
the greater expense involved in that arm of the service 
for a poor country like Japan is another factor. So 
in cavalry Japan is very badly off. 

On the other hand, in measuring the respective value 
of Russia's troops, a clear distinction ought to be made 
between those coming from her Asiatic provinces, and 
those coming from the European ones. The latter, 
for a war like the present one, are greatly inferior. 
This will show itself more and more plainly as the 
war progresses. The Russian soldier of the interior 
cannot compare physically with his comrade of Siberia 
or Central Asia. Nor is he accustomed to the diffi- 
cult climate and hardships of every kind. 

A word as to the finances of the two countries. It 
is a common mistake to suppose Russia to be a wealthy 
country, that is, so far as capital is concerned. There 
is an immensity of latent natural resources, but these 
for the overwhelming part are not yet being exploited, 
and they do not help her in a great war. For the mo- 
ment she has the sinews of war, but how about six 
months hence? 

The unwary are apt to be misled by the flashy 
budget reports annually issued by the finance ministry 
in St. Petersburg. The one for 1904 shows a total 
government revenue of almost $1,000,000,000, with 
the ordinary expenditures several millions below that 
figure. But this total is arrived at by bringing under 
its head a number of important resources which are 



Military Notes 17 

in the nature of government monopolies, and which in 
every other country would not be so classed. Among 
these are the government liquor monopoly, the receipts 
from the entire network of Russian railroads (alto- 
gether about 42,000 miles in length, that is, less than 
one-fifth of the length of the American railroads), the 
earnings of a large number of great industrial estab- 
lishments owned and operated by the government, and 
so forth. 

Furthermore, these Russian budgets are notoriously 
unreliable — there is always more or less juggling with 
figures in them. And then comes the vast item of 
Russia's national debt. That portion of it for which 
the government is directly and indirectly responsible 
amounts to over $4,250,000,000, according to a com- 
putation recently made by Frank A. Vanderlip, a well- 
known financial writer. Foreign creditors hold of this 
something like $1,900,000,000, France alone about 
$1,450,000,000, with Germany, Holland, and Bel- 
gium next in importance on the list. To meet the 
interest on this enormous debt — most of it at four per 
cent. — means every year a fearful strain on Russian 
finances. This gigantic debt, as will be pointed out 
elsewhere, is also responsible for the fact that Russia 
is compelled to maintain a vast excess of exports over 
imports. And as these exports are nearly all agri- 
cultural, not enough foodstuffs are left in Russia to 
nourish her population adequately. 

With all that, Russia has been obliged every year 
since 1893 to pile a new foreign debt on top of her 
old one, and since 1900 she has found increasing diffi- 
culty in obtaining new loans. 

It cannot, therefore, be said that Russia's finances are 
in a sound condition. The exact opposite is the truth. 



1 8 The War and Its Outcome 

However, when comparing her financial resources 
with those of Japan, Russia is superior, so far as the 
ability to raise large sums of money abroad is con- 
cerned. 

True, Japan's debt is but little more than a fraction 
of Russia's. Its total is now $370,000,000, and $50,- 
000,000 of that represents the new domestic issue 
(oversubscribed enormously by patriotic "Japs") 
made since the beginning of this war. Again, by far 
the greater part of the whole debt takes the form of 
domestic loans. 

But despite the marvellous advance of Japan since 
1870 in all the factors of civilised life, the island 
empire is, after all, poor when compared with Western 
nations. A. R. Colquhoun, in his latest book, makes 
the statement that the average annual earnings of a 
Japanese family are but $45.00. Such a figure speaks 
plainly. It may be well to mention, though, that 
$45.00 per annum, ridiculously low as it seems to us, 
is more than the average Russian earns. The highest 
figure claimed by the Russian government itself for 
the average yearly income of a Russian peasant 
family is 63 roubles, about $32.00. And the Rus- 
sian peasants form 95 per cent, of the total popu- 
lation. 

All the same, in a long and expensive war — such as 
this present one is going to be — Japan will find it a 
matter of extreme difficulty to raise the funds required. 

It is true that Japan has made rapid strides forward 
in industry and commerce. Her imports and exports 
for 1903 amounted to almost $300,000,000. Those 
of Russia have remained practically stationary for a 
number of years, at about $720,000,000. Japan has 
increased her foreign trade fivefold since 1888. Her 



Military Notes 19 

cotton industry is even to-day considerably larger than 
that of Russia. 

It is quite safe to say that if this war had not been 
forced upon Japan, if she had been allowed to proceed 
peaceably on her path, the surprising rate of increase 
in her prosperity would have been maintained. This 
war, though, inevitably will thrust her back for a time. 

A great ally of Japan during this war has already 
made an appearance. That is Russian official corrup- 
tion. The tremendous defalcations committed in the 
construction of the Transsiberian Railroad were par- 
tially known before, but they have come to the full 
light only since the outbreak of hostilities. The same 
is true of the Russian commissariat department. Am- 
munition, all sorts of provisions and forage, field 
equipments, etc., which the " Little Father " in St. 
Petersburg had been led to believe had been sent 
months ago to the theatre of war, have been purloined 
by dishonest contractors and officials to the extent of 
many millions. And many additional millions will 
disappear into the pockets of Russia's greedy bureau- 
cracy before the war is over. In this respect Japan's 
record is clean, and is likely to remain so. 

The real issues of a war are scarcely ever mentioned 
by any government in flinging down the gauntlet to 
a foe. This present war, so novel in many respects, 
was novel also in that, at least on the part of one of 
the belligerents, namely, Japan, the actual reason was 
given for resorting to war. 

In the diplomatic correspondence between Japan 
and Russia since August, 1903, the former made a 
clear and unvarnished statement why she considered 
existing conditions in Manchuria and Corea incom- 
patible with her vital interests. Russia on her part 



20 The War and Its Outcome 

followed her traditional diplomatic system of duplicity 
and subterfuge. But the world, of course, knows 
what the real animus of Russia was and is in this 
struggle. To gain an ice-free and first-class harbour 
on the coast of the Pacific led her to seize Port Arthur. 
To extend her sway throughout Manchuria, and thus 
connect unbrokenly her older northward Far Asian 
possessions with points much farther south; to win, 
step by step, by hook or crook, Corea, and thus enor- 
mously strengthen her strategic position, and in this 
way obtain a longer and better frontage on the Pacific 
than any other nation on either side of that ocean could 
dream of — these were the guiding causes of Russia's 
aggressive policy towards Japan and China. 

For Japan the case stands differently. Her little 
island empire of 162,153 square miles, with a popula- 
tion of about 48,000,000, is not only densely popu- 
lated, but actually overpopulated ; for it must be re- 
membered that the greater part of her territory is 
mountainous and not tillable, and that many of her 
islands are but barren rock. The density of her pop- 
ulation in the habitable parts is double that of either 
England, Germany, or France. She needs an outlet 
for her teeming millions. Immigration restrictions 
in America and Australia prevent wholesale Japanese 
emigration. Corea lies on the adjoining mainland, 
with a population and climate closely resembling the 
southern provinces of Japan itself. Possession of 
Corea would solve the entire problem for Japan. An 
internationally recognised protectorate over Corea, 
with a close customs-union as one of the leading 
features, would serve her purpose nearly as well. 

Aside from that phase of the matter, Corea, in the 
words of a Japanese statesman, is " pointed like an 



Military Notes 



21 



arrow at the heart of Japan," and for such a power 
as Russia to either hold Corea or be paramount there 
would actually threaten Japan's national existence. 
A glance at the map will be sufficient to convince any 
fair-minded reader of that. 




Map showing Corea and the neighbouring parts of Japan 



Thus, then, Japan is battling for her independence, 
for a chance of expansion, for her new-won prestige 
as a world-power — in fact, for all an ambitious and 
patriotic people holds dear. It may be called a war 
of desperation on her part, but history affords more 
than one example of a small, liberty-loving people tri- 
umphing over a big and haughty foe. 

Of course, the longer the war the less Japan's chance 
of ultimate victory; the more, too, the danger of the 
gallant little people bleeding slowly to death. Russia, 
large but unwieldy, can gradually focus her energies 



2 2 The War and Its Outcome 

upon one point, can bring her Baltic fleet to Far Asia, 
and send over the Transsiberian Road additional 
regiment after regiment. But the Japanese, small in 
stature though they be, are stout of heart, and the 
fortunes of war frequently take surprising turns. 

Great fear was entertained in Europe and this coun- 
try that other nations would be involved in the 
struggle. It was recognised from the start, both in 
England and the United States, that Japan fought for 
American and English interests, for the " open door " 
and the gradual regeneration and liberalising of China 
and the whole of Asia. Nevertheless, it was justly a 
matter of congratulation for both English-speaking 
powers, that, owing to Secretary Hay's manly, prompt, 
and wise action, the outlook, soon after the com- 
mencement of hostilities, began to brighten in this 
respect at least. Several grave elements of danger 
were eliminated from the situation, the theatre of war 
was narrowed down, and the issues themselves were 
more clearly defined on both sides. 



CHAPTER III 
OPINIONS OF EXPERTS 

It is a trite saying that a body of experts usually 
agrees to disagree. This is particularly true before 
the outbreak and during the earlier progress of wars. 
John Morley in his "Life of Gladstone " tells us that 
in 1870 all England was blind to Germany's greater 
military strength when measured with that of France, 
and that the rapid victories of the Teuton hosts, cul- 
minating, blow after blow, in the catastrophe of Sedan, 
fairly floored even the most sagacious Briton. 

It was so in 1894-95. Public opinion everywhere 
up to the battle on the Yalu had not for a moment 
anticipated Japan's easy successes. Of course, Japan 
was then an entirely new factor in world politics. 
Practically, she is so now. And the hesitancy of 
military and financial experts to commit themselves to 
a definite prognostication is easily understood. 

Thus we have seen from the start in this present 
war, and during the preliminary diplomatic stages, 
that Japan is being underestimated. The wish is 
father to the thought, and therefore it was not surpris- 
ing to see the public opinion of those countries most 
friendly to Russia — France and Germany — scoffing at 
the notion of Japan's setting up as a serious foe to 
Russia. The Russians themselves, government and 
people alike, have persistently laughed at Japan's pre- 
tensions to be taken in dead earnest. Senator Bev- 

23 



24 The War and Its Outcome 

eridge in his recent book on Russia gives amusing in- 
stances of this. But what is more astonishing is that 
even in those countries which entertain more or less 
sympathy with Japan's defence of her rights as a 
growing and independent nation, particularly England 
and the United States, the overwhelming trend of 
public opinion was altogether in the same direction, 
and but relatively few predicted ultimate triumph for 
Japan. 

In this country, it was only General Daniel E. 
Sickles who came out flatly with a horoscope favour- 
able to Japan. In a brief magazine article he said : 

" The probability is that the war will not be a long 
one. The difficulties Russia is obliged to encounter 
are likely to prove insurmountable, while Japan would 
be glad to make peace if she can drive Russia out of 
Manchuria and Corea." 

Our soldier foremost in common repute, General 
Nelson A. Miles, is non-committal. He says : 

" I think it is reasonable to presume that the war 
will be of long duration, and that a much larger num- 
ber of men will be brought into the field of operation 
than are now engaged. It is likely to be a very ex- 
pensive war before it ends, and a war that is quite 
likely to involve other European powers. I see no 
occasion for our own country's being concerned in an 
entangling alliance, and should regard it as a great 
misfortune if it should become involved. ... As to 
what the result will be, no mortal can safely predict. 
. . . How, when, and where the war will end, is as 
impossible to determine, as it would be to prophesy the 
result of a game of chess." 

Another well-known American strategist, General 
Joseph Wheeler, says : 



Opinions of Experts 25 

" The chances of the final victory are certainly with 
Russia. Russia's resources and army preponderate so 
greatly that it would seem that the Czar's troops would 
be able to overcome the forces which will finally be 
inferior in numbers." 

Still another American soldier of great distinction, 
and one who knows the Russian army intimately in 
peace and war, General Francis V. Greene, firmly be- 
lieves in Russian success, pointing to the almost un- 
broken advance of the Russians in years past. He 
takes the view, however, that the final settlement of 
the quarrel will not be by Russia and Japan alone. In 
this connection he says : 

" It is quite certain that Japan will not become a 
Russian province, nor will there be any ' yellow peril ' 
under the leadership of Japan; for, no matter which 
side wins, the treaty of peace will be made, not by the 
two combatants, but by a congress of all the great 
powers, including ourselves — so far have unforeseen 
events carried us away from the traditions of Wash- 
ington. The terms of that treaty will be such as the 
great nations think best for the interests of the whole 
world, and not alone of the two nations who have 
carried on the war." 

In saying this General Greene might have pointed 
as precedents not only to the treaty of Shimonoseki, 
on May 8, 1895, the terms of which were subsequently 
nullified at the joint demand of Russia, Germany, and 
France, leaving Japan as the fruit of her conquest 
merely the island of Formosa, but to others as well — 
for instance, to the treaty of San Stefano, which was 
broken by the Congress of Berlin, leaving Russia not 
an inch of Turkish territory. 

Since the outbreak of the war, Japan's minister in 



26 The War and Its Outcome 

Washington, Kogoro Takahira, has repeatedly made 
statements in public as to what Japan is fighting for. 
The most cogent and comprehensive of these state- 
ments said, among other things : 

" The indefinite occupation of Manchuria by Russia 
would be a continual menace to the Corean Empire, 
whose independence Japan regards as absolutely es- 
sential to her own repose and security. . . . Russia 
was not willing to bind herself in any manner regard- 
ing the independence and territorial integrity of 
China." 

Another Japanese gentleman of distinction. Baron 
Kentaro Kaneko, a graduate of Harvard University, 
and a former member of the Japanese Cabinet, recently 
was heard to declare that " We are not looking for the 
acquisition of territory. For the sake of peace we 
gave up Manchuria, which we had won by loss of 
blood and treasure. Peace was and is the sole object 
of Japan. . . . We tried in every diplomatic and con- 
ciliatory way to avoid a conflict with Russia, but she 
would not keep her word, and we had to fight for our 
honour and existence." 

On the other hand, Count Cassini, Russia's am- 
bassador in Washington, quite recently expressed him- 
self in a very different way. Some of his statements 
were as follows : 

" The success of Japan in the present war would 
imperil the interests not only of Europe, but of 
America also. It would make the Japanese dominant 
in Asia, and result in an Asiatic league. Japan is an 
ambitious, aggressive nation, eager for war and con- 
quest. No one who has any acquaintance with the 
two countries can doubt that if Japan were to become 
ascendant, she would supply military instructors to 



Opinions of Experts 27 

China, and in ten years she would raise an army from 
the 430,000,000 inhabitants of that empire that could 
defy the world. . . . The Chinese are not at all slow. 
As Russian minister to Peking, I had excellent oppor- 
tunities to study them. I was there in 1894 during 
the Chinese-Japanese War. From that time until 
1900, when the Boxer uprising occurred, a period of 
only six years, the Chinese have displayed an amazing 
development in military spirit and capacity.'' 

Such a statement, though coming from so high a 
source, must not go unchallenged. The facts contra- 
dict it. Since her rise as a military and naval power, 
Japan has given no evidence whatever of a belligerent 
temper. The war of 1894-95 grew out of old and 
well-founded claims which Japan had on Corea, or 
rather, on the maintenance of an efficient government 
there. The war was forced on Japan, just as much 
as was this present war. 

The " yellow peril " idea is a bugaboo which Russia 
has been very cleverly manipulating in the past, and 
with which she is more or less successfully trying to 
blind the eyes of the seeing now. But it is a figment 
of the imagination, a phantom which has no real ex- 
istence. Its absurdity will be shown elsewhere in this 
book. 

The author of one of the most valuable books on 
modern Russia, Henry Norman, M. P., in the final 
paragraph of a recent article, says: 

" In conclusion, I will venture upon one prophecy, 
namely, that the result of this war will be for Russia 
a blessing in disguise. The policy of expansion every- 
where, at any cost, and by any method, whether of 
arms or of diplomacy, together with its authors and 
upholders, will be discredited. The canker at the 



28 The War and Its Outcome 

heart of Russia — the corruption of her bureaucracy — 
will be cut out. The statesmen who desire to curtail 
military expenditure, and to encourage Russian pro- 
duction and commerce, will come back to power. The 
Czar will brush aside opposition to the ideals of hu- 
manity and peace that he cherishes. The unparalleled 
natural resources of Russia, in mines and forests and 
wheat-lands and cattle-lands and oil-lands and great 
water-powers, will be developed. This movement will 
weed out the incompetent and dishonest official, and 
Russia will, I am convinced, date a new and a better 
epoch from the year in which two classes of her offi- 
cials deceived their emperor and betrayed their coun- 
try." 

Frank A. Vanderlip, vice-president of the National 
City Bank of New York, and formerly assistant secre- 
tary of the Treasury, in a recent admirable statement 
of the financial resources of the two countries, declares 
the credit of both Japan and Russia in the world's 
money markets to be not very good. Japan's only 
market for her securities he finds in London ; Russia's, 
in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Brussels, the capi- 
tals of her main creditors. He cites a number of un- 
reliable data in Russian budgets ; exposes the regularly 
recurring " free balance " in the Russian treasury as 
a sham, and points to the " extraordinary expendi- 
tures," amounting for 1904 to some $100,000,000, as 
instances of curious book-keeping; but he admits the 
great strength of Russia's gold reserve. Indeed, he 
says that in the preceding year, Russia's stock of gold 
increased $90,000,000, bringing it up to $525,000,000. 
One statement by him is significant. He says : 

" One of the greatest factors in the strength of the 
Russian financial position, however, lies in the vastness 



Opinions of Experts 29 

of her existing debt. With the investors of France 
holding $1,400,000,000 of her securities, they must 
of necessity buy more. They cannot permit prices to 
be unduly depressed; and, rather than see that, in- 
vestors already interested in Russian securities will 
certainly buy more. The same is true in only a less 
degree in Germany and Holland." 

An inkling of the extent to which this country is 
materially interested in the present war zone is fur- 
nished by a recent statement from the pen of O. P. 
Austin, chief of the Bureau of Statistics in Washing- 
ton. 

American commerce there has grown from tiny be- 
ginnings to great heights. It amounted, in 1843, to a 
trifle over $6,000,000, exports and imports. In 1903 
the exports from the United States to Japan, China, 
Corea, Hong Kong, and Asiatic Russia had risen to 
$49,970,000; the imports from these countries were 
$72,320,000. Thus we have at present a trade of 
over $122,000,000 with those regions. The British 
Empire alone still exceeds us in the magnitude of her 
commercial interests there. 

But that this country is on the ascending scale in 
this matter, while Great Britain is declining, shows 
itself very plainly by an analysis of the figures. 

In 1873 Great Britain did a trade of $121,000,000 
with those countries. In 1883 it had declined to 
$110,000,000, and in 1902 to $98,000,000. It is only 
by grouping exports and imports from British India, 
Australasia, and other British possessions, with those 
of the mother country, that the whole volume of her 
business with Far Asia can be shown to be still greater 
than ours. 

American trade with Japan has risen even more 



30 The War and Its Outcome 

rapidly than that with China. We exported to Japan 
(in 1902) $21,485,000 to Great Britain's $26,000,000. 
Within twenty years British exports to Japan have 
doubled, American ones have more than sextupled. 

Taking the whole of our imports and exports to Far 
Asia, we see that since 1883 our sales to them have 
more than quadrupled, and our purchases doubled. 

In a pronounced degree, we are Japan's best cus- 
tomer. We buy from her the bulk of her unmanu- 
factured silk, and practically all of the tea she exports. 
Of China a similar statement can be made. At pres- 
ent Japan still takes most of her cotton from India. 
That cotton is of shorter staple and therefore less val- 
uable, but for Japanese uses it has until now sufficed. 
With a further development of Japan's cotton in- 
dustry, she will need our better cottons. And, it must 
be remembered, the cotton industry has always been 
the leading one in Japan. That nation is destined to 
be one of the chief cotton goods producers of the 
world. 

With Russia our trade relations have never been 
even nearly as large as they ought to be from the size 
and population of the country. Those with Asiatic 
Russia have been and are but a drop in the bucket of 
our foreign commerce, just a paltry million or two. 

We exported to Russia in 1880, all told, $13,229,- 
000, and in 1903 $17,606,000, about $4,000,000 less 
than to Japan. 

Russia's total imports from all parts of the world 
increased from $242,000,000 in 1871 to $305,000,000 
in 1 90 1, or 25 per cent.; Japan's total imports in the 
same time increased from $22,000,000 to $127,000,- 
000, or 480 per cent. 

Some other facts are also suggestive. 



Opinions of Experts 31 

Russia discourages, by every means at the disposal 
of an autocratic government, exports from other coun- 
tries. Her trade with foreign nations is hampered 
by an excessive tariff, by an extremely corrupt cus- 
toms service, and by every kind of official chicanery. 

Another fact : Russia is our chief rival in her main 
exports — kerosene, flour, wheat, lumber, cotton goods 
(by paying an export bounty on them), provisions. 
In short, she is a natural producer of nearly all the 
articles which form the bulk of our export to the 
Orient. Doubtless she would be an active and vigorous 
rival in the contest for that market, while Japan's pro- 
ductions are entirely different in character from those 
of the United States, and in no way competitive. 



CHAPTER IV 
A TRIUMPH OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 

To Americans it must be matter of sincere congratu- 
lation that in this whole Far Eastern problem the far- 
sightedness and fairness of our statesmanship and 
diplomacy have excelled those of any other nation. 

Indeed, it is strictly within the truth to say that — 
so far at least — American good sense has achieved a 
signal victory in handling this most thorny question. 

Of course there was plenty of precedent for that on 
our side. From the very outset, this country has dis- 
played singular sagacity, and been favoured by as 
singular luck, in dealing with China, Japan, and Corea. 
To determine how much of it was sagacity, and how 
much luck, may be left to individual taste and judg- 
ment. 

At any rate, the very letter which inaugurated reg- 
ular international relations between the Celestial Em- 
pire and this republic, sixty-one years ago, was a 
masterpiece of shrewdness and sound sense. It is 
worth reproducing: 

" I, John Tyler, President of the United States of 
America — which States are Maine, New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, In- 

32 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 3 3 

diana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkan- 
sas, and Michigan — send you this letter of peace and 
friendship, signed by my own hand. 

" I hope your health is good. China is a great 
Empire, extending over a great part of the world. 
The Chinese are numerous. You have millions and 
millions of subjects. The twenty-six United States 
are as large as China, though our people are not so 
numerous. The rising sun looks upon the great moun- 
tains and great rivers of China. When he sets he 
looks upon rivers and mountains equally large in the 
United States. Our territories extend from one great 
ocean to the other; and on the west we are divided 
from your dominions only by the sea. Leaving the 
mouth of one of our great rivers and going constantly 
toward the setting sun, we sail to Japan and to the 
Yellow Sea. 

" Now, my words are that the governments of two 
such great countries should be at peace. It is proper, 
and according to the will of heaven, that they should 
respect each other and act wisely. I therefore send 
to your court Caleb Cushing, one of the wise and 
learned men of this country. On his first arrival in 
China he will inquire for your health. He has strict 
orders to go to your great city of Peking and there to 
deliver this letter. He will have with him secretaries 
and interpreters. 

" The Chinese love to trade with our people and to 
sell them tea and silk, for which our people pay silver, 
and sometimes other articles. But if the Chinese and 
the Americans will trade there should be rules, so that 
they shall not break your laws or our laws. Our min- 
ister, Caleb Cushing, is authorized to make a treaty 
to regulate trade. Let it be just. Let there be no 



34 The War and Its Outcome 

unfair advantage on either side. Let the people trade 
not only at Canton, but also at Amoy, Ningpo, Shang- 
hai, Fuchau, and all such other places as may offer 
profitable exchanges both to China and the United 
States, provided they do not break your laws nor our 
laws. We shall not take the part of evildoers. We 
shall not uphold them that break your laws. There- 
fore, we doubt not that you will be pleased that our 
messenger of peace, with this letter in his hand, shall 
come to Peking, and there deliver it; and that your 
great officers will, by your order, make a treaty with 
him to regulate affairs of trade, so that nothing 
may happen to disturb the peace between China and 
America. Let the treaty be signed by your own im- 
perial hand. It shall be signed by mine, by the author- 
ity of our great council, the Senate. 

" And so may your health be good and may peace 
reign. 

" Written at Washington, this twelfth of July, in 
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
forty-three. 

" Your good friend, 
(Signed) " John Tyler, 

" President." 

Caleb Cushing was the man who delivered this 
letter, gauged so keenly in accordance with Oriental 
perceptions, and the result of his mission was a com- 
mercial treaty between China and the United States. 
By virtue of its terms certain ports were opened to 
Americans. Similar privileges were afterwards 
granted to other nations. 

So, then, this was the first " open door " by which 
our products could enter. It was the inauguration, in 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 35 

other words, of that " open door " policy to which this 
nation has since consistently clung, the only one in 
that quarter which will " pay " in the long run. 

Ten years later, Japan, which up to that time had 
had no commercial relations with the outside world, 
signed a treaty at the request of the United States — 
Commodore Perry having done the preliminary work 
in a most tactful manner — by which American vessels 
were allowed to enter certain of the Japanese ports, 
and trading privileges were given to American mer- 
chants. 

Thus it was that the United States, without any war 
of aggression, without risking blood and treasure, did 
more to open the commerce of the Orient than all the 
European powers together. 

It was, therefore, by building on foundations laid by 
his predecessors, that our able secretary of state, John 
Hay, pursued his own Far Eastern policy. 

In 1899 a fair solution was advanced by Mr. Hay 
of the troublous problem how to bring Far Asia within 
the range of western civilising missions. 

By our acquisition of the Philippines, China had 
become our near neighbour. At that time, Great 
Britain, Russia. France, and Germany had already 
gained special advantages and exclusive privileges in 
portions of China, including acquisitions of territory. 
The dismemberment of China seemed at hand. 

That such designs were rife at the time admits of 
no doubt. They were cloaked under the euphemistic 
phrase of " spheres of influence." But they meant 
nothing else than the gradual slicing-up of China's im- 
mense living body. These plans had rapidly matured 
since the close of the Japanese-Chinese war of 1894-95, 
and it had been to keep the younger power, Japan, from 



36 The War and Its Outcome 

sharing in these spoils, to nip in the bud any slumber- 
ing ambitions on her part, that Russia, Germany, 
and France had torn up the treaty of Shimonoseki, 
and deprived Japan of the fruits of her well-won 
victory. 

In the nick of time, at what diplomats call the 
" psychological moment," this country intervened. To 
retain in China, as Mr. Hay phrased it, " an open 
market for all the world's commerce, to remove dan- 
gerous sources of international irritation," and to pro- 
mote administrative reforms in China, greatly needed 
to strengthen the imperial government at Peking, and 
to maintain the integrity of China, was what the 
United States demanded and urged. 

Mr. Hay, in September, 1899, inaugurated a series 
of negotiations with those powers that had obtained 
" spheres of influence " in China. To secure results 
which would benefit the entire western world, he in- 
sisted that powers holding " spheres of influence " 
should give assurances in writing that within those 
" spheres " there should be : 

(1) Non-interference with any treaty port or with 
vested interests of any nation; 

(2) Equality of treatment for all nations in the 
matter of tariff duties in China, and provision for the 
collection of such duties by the Chinese government 
itself ; and 

(3) Equality of treatment for all nations in the 
matter of harbour dues on vessels and in railroad 
charges. 

To express the matter differently, it was proposed 
by Mr. Hay that all non-privileged nations entertaining 
commercial relations with China should, in such rela- 
tions, be treated as if there were no " spheres of influ- 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 37 

ence " or other government present in China. All that 
America asked was a fair field and no favour. 

These negotiations, vigorously begun and pros- 
ecuted, and on this side pervaded throughout by an 
evident spirit of frankness, proved eminently success- 
ful. The governments concerned were those of 
Russia, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and 
Italy. Within three months replies from them all had 
been received, giving cordial and full assurance of 
adhesion to the principles suggested by our govern- 
ment. 

It deserves mention that the German government 
was especially cordial and emphatic in its adherence. 
In his note of February 19, 1900, Count von Buelow, 
now imperial chancellor, but at that time still Ger- 
many's secretary of foreign affairs, said : 

" The imperial government of Germany has, from 
the beginning, not only asserted, but also practically 
carried out to the fullest extent, in its Chinese pos- 1 
sessions, absolute equality of treatment of all nations 
with regard to trade, navigation, and commerce. The 
imperial government entertains no thought of depart- 
ing in the future from this principle." 

All the other replies, the one from Russia included, 
were of similar tenor. A great triumph in favour of 
equality of treatment for the commerce of the nations 
had been achieved. 

This had scarcely been done, however, when the 
world was startled in the early part of 1900 by reports 
of frightful massacres and atrocities being perpetrated 
by the Boxers upon all foreigners in China. The 
charge of collusion has been laid at the door of the 
imperial government at Peking, but it has never been 
clearly proved. Whether or no, however, the central 



38 The War and Its Outcome 

government was evidently too weak and indifferent to 
restrain those large bands of evil-doers or to afford pro- 
tection to foreign residents. 

The person actually exercising the prerogatives of 
the throne, — the dowager empress, Tsi An, — with her 
charge, the nominal emperor, and the whole court and 
nearly all the government officials, fled and abandoned 
the capital. 

It was during the awful time of suspense, while the 
whole civilised world turned its eyes toward that small 
quarter of Peking where the ambassadors and other 
representatives of the powers were being besieged and 
in momentary expectation of a frightful death, that one 
nation and one man did not lose their heads. 

When the ancient empire seemed tottering to its 
fall, there appeared, on July 3, 1900, a clear, calm note 
addressed by Mr. Hay to all the powers having inter- 
ests in China, containing a statement of the position 
of our government with respect to affairs there. 

This note declared the intention of our government 
to abide by its well-known policy of peace with China, 
the furtherance of commerce, the protection of Ameri- 
can citizens, and the demand of full reparation for 
wrongs. 

The purpose of the United States was declared to be 
to act concurrently with the other powers in re-estab- 
lishing communication with Peking, to rescue Ameri- 
cans there, to protect Americans and their property 
everywhere in China, and to prevent the further spread 
of disorder in the empire. The note also declared that 
it was the policy of this government to seek means to 
bring about permanent safety and peace to China, to 
preserve her territorial and administrative entity, to 
protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers, and 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 39 

to safeguard for the world the principle of equal and 
impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire. 

The whole spirit of this note was so reassuring and 
sincere that it met with a most sympathetic and hearty 
approval on the part of the other powers. It did more 
than any other single factor, in encouraging and pro- 
moting the expedition which successfully undertook the 
rescue of the besieged diplomatic corps. It helped im- 
mensely to bring about an early restoration of order 
and peace in China. 

The note, however, was a sledge-hammer blow, in- 
offensive as it seemed, for the maintenance of the 
" open door." 

There followed negotiations resulting in the pro- 
tocol between China and the allied powers. This pro- 
tocol was signed on September 7, 1901. It served to 
heighten the respect of the nations of the world for the 
straightforward policy of the government of the 
United States. In the course of these negotiations it 
was due to the skilful endeavours of the American 
commissioners that a certain degree of leniency was 
shown to the imperial government of China. The 
demands of the other powers had been in favour of 
meting out to the leaders of the Boxer hosts and the 
Chinese officials implicated in the anti-foreign mas- 
sacres, punishments so drastic and humiliating to Chi- 
nese self-respect, that to carry them out would have 
meant the perpetuation of the spirit of intense hos- 
tility to all persons of western blood. The agreement 
finally adopted by the international commission avoided 
such extreme humiliation, and thus opened the path to 
eventual reconciliation between the allied powers and 
China. 

The same reasons which had guided our govern- 



40 The War and Its Outcome 

ment's action in these particulars stood it in good stead 
in insisting on a course of measures intended to pre- 
vent the recurrence of such internal troubles as the 
Boxer rising. Our policy then and since has been to 
further the existence of a stable and responsible gov- 
ernment in China, and, by strengthening its powers, 
to secure in the easiest way a fair measure of protec- 
tion for our citizens and our interests under existing 
treaties. 

With a like point in view, Mr. Hay took a firm 
stand against the exorbitant demands of the other 
allies in the way of indemnity for wrongs inflicted 
during the Boxer troubles. Not only was the total 
amount of this indemnity greatly reduced — in fact, 
more than cut in half — by the efforts of our govern- 
ment, but the form and period of payments, and the 
coin in which these were to be made, were also brought 
more in consonance with the actual ability of the Chi- 
nese government. 

It was in accordance with this spirit of considera- 
tion and forbearance towards a weakened and humbled 
power that the share of the indemnity to be paid to 
this country was voluntarily diminished by us. This 
striking and almost unheard-of instance of interna- 
tional generosity, could not fail to impress even so 
callous a race as the Chinese. They saw in it a proof 
of our friendly inclination, and the then Chinese min- 
ister to Washington, Wu Ting Fang, made repeated 
and zealous expressions of gratitude. 

Practically, though, the greatest service which this 
government rendered downtrodden China was the suc- 
cessful insistence on the silver rate of payment to be 
made by China. The protocol of September 7, 1901, 
had provided for Chinese instalments of the indemnity 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 41 

in haikwan taels, the largest silver coin in vogue in 
China, and at the time worth about seventy-two cents. 
Silver thereafter sank rapidly, and the allied powers, 
with the single exception of this country, thereupon 
insisted that the haikwan tael was to be accepted only 
at the much lower value to which meanwhile it had 
been reduced in the money markets of the world. 

Our government maintained a contrary view. It 
claimed that, as a matter of fairness, Chinese silver 
should be taken for the instalments of the indemnity 
at the same value which it possessed on the day of 
signing the protocol. And, though this view was 
combated fiercely by several of the other powers, 
notably Russia and Germany, it finally prevailed — an- 
other triumph of American diplomacy. 

Early in 1902 this government received reliable in- 
formation of the details of a proposed agreement be- 
tween China and Russia regarding Manchuria. By 
the terms of this proposed agreement, there were to 
be conferred on Russia in that important province ex- 
clusive rights and privileges which were in direct con- 
flict with American treaty rights. Incidentally they 
threatened to impair seriously the sovereign rights of 
China in that portion of her dominion. 

Manchuria is a province of China which holds much 
in store for American commerce. The ports of Man- 
churia face our Pacific coast in a direct line, and 
though American trade with them is of rather recent 
date, and amounts as yet to only a few millions yearly, 
the conditions are such that we may confidently look 
there to commercial supremacy in the very near future, 
provided Manchuria remains a Chinese possession in 
the full sense. The imports of Manchuria are pre- 
cisely of the description which suits us best. American 



42 The War and Its Outcome 

cottons and calicoes, petroleum, hardware, and other 
products, such as flour and canned meats, in which we 
are strong, are much in demand there; and within a 
very short time, we have built up a safe and paying 
trade, a trade which may be expanded almost limit- 
lessly. 

Mr. Hay took prompt action on receiving the above 
information. A vigorous protest was lodged by our 
government with both China and Russia, pointing out 
the deleterious effects of the proposed agreement upon 
American interests and those of the whole world, and 
also calling attention in unmistakable terms to its 
conflict with solemn assurances previously given re- 
garding the " open door." 

In this instance again, the frank and open language 
of the protest did not fail of its effect. Considerable 
modifications of the terms of the agreement were made 
in favour of other nations ; and the protest called forth 
from Russia a renewal of her assurances that she had 
no intention of violating the principle of the " open 
door," and firmly meant to maintain it. 

Another signal step in the same direction was taken 
by our government when a commercial treaty was 
signed between the United States and China, dated 
at Shanghai, October 8, 1903. This instrument rein- 
forced the " open door " policy by removing many 
annoying restrictions previously placed upon foreign 
trade by Chinese officials, and by simplifying the 
methods of intercourse both with the central govern- 
ment and local authorities. The most important ad- 
vantage, however, gained by this treaty was the open- 
ing to " international residence and trade " of the two 
cities of Mukden and An Tung in Manchuria. These 
cities, while not seaports, are important trade centres, 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 43 

and will prove of immense advantage to the spread of 
American commercial interests throughout that whole 
region. 

Since then events of great and international im- 
portance have been precipitated. The clash between 
Russia and Japan became at last inevitable. Hostil- 
ities once begun by those two powers, their geographic 
situation as well as that of the theatre of war, seemed 
to make it likely that China herself would become 
more or less involved, if not in actual warfare, at 
least in armed neutrality and in the extension of the 
territory affected. The integrity of the empire might 
again be seriously impaired, and the principle of the 
" open door," with all its benefits to this country and 
the world, seemed gravely imperilled. 

Again Secretary Hay was quick to perceive and 
prompt to act in such a delicate situation. After some 
preliminary negotiations, he sent, on February 10, a 
note to the governments of Russia, Japan, and China, 
and a copy of it to other powers, requesting similar 
representations to Russia and Japan. This note was 
brief and to the point, reading as follows : 

" You will express to the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs the earnest desire of the government of the 
United States that in the course of the military opera- 
tions which have begun between Russia and Japan, 
the neutrality of China, and in all practicable ways her 
administrative entity, shall be respected by both parties, 
and that the area of hostilities shall be localised and 
limited as much as possible, so that undue excitement 
and disturbance of the Chinese people may be pre- 
vented, and the least possible loss to the commerce and 
peaceful intercourse of the world may be occasioned." 



44 The War and Its Outcome 

The government of Japan responded first, on Feb- 
ruary 13, saying: 

" The Imperial Government, sharing with the gov- 
ernment of the United States, in the fullest measure, 
the desire to avoid, as far as possible, any disturbance 
of the orderly condition of affairs now prevailing in 
China, is prepared to respect the neutrality and admin- 
istrative entity of China outside the regions occupied 
by Russia, as long as Russia, making a similar engage- 
ment, fulfils in good faith the terms and conditions of 
such engagements." 

Nine days after the receipt of Mr. Hay's communi- 
cation, and six days after Japan's reply, the govern- 
ment at St. Petersburg likewise answered in these 
words : 

" The Imperial Government shares completely the 
desire to insure tranquillity of China; is ready to ad- 
here to an understanding with other powers for the 
purpose of safeguarding the neutrality of that empire 
on the following conditions : 

" Firstly, China must herself strictly observe all the 
clauses of neutrality. 

" Secondly, the Japanese Government must loyally 
observe the engagements entered into with the powers, 
as well as the principles generally recognised by the 
law of nations. 

" Thirdly, that it is well understood that neutralisa- 
tion in no case can be extended to Manchuria, the terri- 
tory of which, by the force of events, will serve as the 
field of military operations." 



A Triumph of American Diplomacy 45 

The central government of China, on its own part, 
gave emphatic assurances of a firm intention of remain- 
ing strictly neutral during the war. 

European powers interested in China enthusiasti- 
cally adhered to our government's declarations. Mr. 
Hay lost no time in notifying the governments of 
Russia, Japan, and China that the answers received by 
him were " viewed as responsive to the proposal made 
by the United States, as well as by the other powers," 
and thus the matter stands. 

It was another victory of far-sighted American 
statesmanship. 

This last action gave China again the assurance of 
continued American friendly interest, and of our moral 
support in her efforts to maintain her neutrality and 
sovereign sway in her own dominions. 



CHAPTER V 
THE INTEGRITY OF CHINA 

Our whole Chinese policy has been built from the 
start on the assumption that the integrity and inde- 
pendence of the Celestial Empire can and must be 
maintained. This is its cornerstone. Failing that, 
we should fail in our whole Chinese policy. 

In the preceding chapter, it has been shown that this 
policy has not only been consistently adhered to by us, 
through all the changes of administration, the enor- 
mous shifting of political and economic opinion in the 
United States, and even during the bitter trials of our 
great Civil War, but that it has been singularly suc- 
cessful. On many occasions this country has stood up 
alone in defence of Chinese rights and of Chinese terri- 
torial integrity, and this has been the case more par- 
ticularly during the past lustrum. But in every case we 
have won — won even at a time when the United States 
was still considered in the light of a western hermit na- 
tion, and was far from being a world power of such im- 
mense resources and far-spreading influence as to-day. 

The reason for this uniform success must, therefore, 
be something more than the mere weight which our 
voice has to-day in the councils of nations. It was due 
principally to the inherent righteousness of our posi- 
tion. The notable simplicity, directness, and openness 
which have characterised our Chinese policy have been 
additional elements of importance. 

46 



The Integrity of China 47 

As Mr. Hay has well said : " We have sought, suc- 
cessfully, to induce all the great powers to unite in a 
recognition of the general principle of equality of com- 
mercial access and opportunity in the markets of the 
Orient." Through all the correspondence on the 
" open door," run these or similar plain, frank words : 
" to insure to the whole world full and fair intercourse 
with China on equal footing." 

We can justly take credit to ourselves for having 
been the first champion, and the most consistent one, 
of the " open door." 

Neither England nor Japan in this respect has been 
as frank, consistent, or unselfish in defence of this great 
principle. True, both England and Japan have been 
siding with us for a number of years past, and it is 
just as much to their well-understood interests to pro- 
mote and, if need be, fight for the " open door " as it 
is to our own, though in the case of England not in 
the same degree. But this has not prevented England 
from wresting Hong Kong from China, acquiring 
more or less forcibly Wei Hai Wei, on a promontory 
of the province of Shan Tung, and the district of Kau 
Lung, opposite Hong Kong, on the mainland. It has 
not prevented Japan from seizing, at the close of her 
last war with China, Port Arthur and the peninsula 
of Liao Tung, and Formosa and Ta Lien Wan. 

Overwhelming public opinion in Great Britain is 
now in favour of the " open door." But this has been 
brought about almost entirely by American instru- 
mentality, and there are very many of the most influ- 
ential public men in England who believe with the 
average Briton that the " open door " is doomed, and 
that the integrity and independence of China, the sway 
of her government and the cohesion of her several 



48 The War and Its Outcome 

parts, cannot much longer be safeguarded by the west- 
ern powers. The opinion indeed is very widespread 
in England, editorials in her weightiest newspapers to 
the contrary notwithstanding, that to prop up tottering 
China is a thankless and hopeless task, — that China is 
hurrying to her ruin. 

What real public opinion in Japan is on this subject, 
we are not prepared to state. Public opinion there is 
only in the making. And the Japs are too shrewd a 
people to tell their inmost longings to the world. It 
is true that both their government and their influential 
press have been assuring the world for years past that 
nothing is further from their minds than a desire to 
assist in an autopsy on China. 

In any case, whether Japan is quite sincere in the 
matter or no, the conformation of facts relating to the 
external and internal conditions of China is such as 
to make it the part of wisdom for the little island 
empire to stay her hand in any attempts at the division 
of her huge neighbour. 

Doubtless the keen sense of Japan's statesmen has 
told them ere this that she holds better trump cards 
by siding with this country and England in a policy 
of preserving and regenerating China, than in the op- 
posite policy espoused by Russia and France and — till 
recently — by Germany, of a dismemberment of China. 

Certainly the march of events since 1895 must have 
taught Japan that her only safety, so far as the Chinese 
problem is concerned, lies in co-operation with the 
English-speaking nations, and the alliance she con- 
cluded with England on January 30, 1902, would seem 
a striking confirmation of this supposition. 

The belief, then, that the territorial integrity of 
China, together with her national independence, is 



The Integrity of China 49 

feasible, and that, at any rate, it can be prolonged for 
many years to come, is the foundation of the Chinese 
policy of the United States, and the dismemberment of 
China would destroy our carefully raised fabric, would 
demolish the hopes nurtured for many years of an in- 
creasingly important market for a surplus, steadily 
growing, of American manufactures and raw stuffs. 
How much depends on the realisation of these hopes 
will be shown in detail in another chapter. 

It must be admitted that the situation, even before 
the outbreak of this present war, was very difficult for 
China. The empire certainly hangs very loosely to- 
gether. The present dynasty, the Manchus, is hated 
or despised by large portions of the Chinese popula- 
tion. The liberalising element in China, the men who 
have received a western education, are to a man op- 
posed to this dynasty. All through the south of China 
the feeling of dislike and contempt for the Manchus is 
especially strong. It may be questioned whether, even 
in such a conservative country and with a population 
so inured to passive obedience, this present dynasty 
will outlive the decade. 

The powerlessness of the central government in 
China is pitiable. All the sap and energy which the 
Manchu conquerors brought with them from their free 
life on the steppes seem to have left them forever. 
Official corruption gnaws like a canker at the vitals of 
the country. 

Additional reasons might be cited making toward 
the downfall of China. Many of those Europeans and 
Americans, who have resided there longest and know 
country and people best, despair of a national future 
for the Chinaman. 

But it is not the cue of the United States to magnify 



50 The War and Its Outcome 

the dangers threatening China's integrity. And there 
are, without any manner of doubt, good and weighty 
reasons to be cited for the other contention, the Ameri- 
can one. Above all, no matter how bad the present 
government, there remain the Chinese people, a people 
of more than 420,000,000. What is to be done with 
them? No matter if the Manchu dynasty be upset, 
this immense people will remain, under new or old 
rulers, a gigantic factor in the future development of 
this globe. A people numbering more than one-fourth 
of the entire population of the earth, a people showing 
individually such immense vitality, industry, abstemi- 
ousness and sobriety, is not to be brushed aside by a 
mere phrase such as — The Dismemberment of China. 

Dismemberment would only make the Chinese prob- 
lem much harder to solve, besides depriving us of a 
splendid market. Both reasons are quite sufficient to 
make it worth while for American statesmanship to 
bend its energies to the utmost in the maintenance of 
China as a political and economic entity. 

The system of " interest spheres " never worked 
well. It is full of dangers to the peace of the world. 
We have seen that in Asia, on many conspicuous occa- 
sions, ancient and modern. France and England could 
nci abide together in India. We see the same fact 
to-day in Africa. Fashoda almost precipitated a war 
between France and England. Joint administration 
and joint power did not work in Egypt. Neither does 
codominion ever work well. We ourselves saw that, 
even if in the case of a rather petty object — the Samoan 
Islands. Collisions of a more or less serious character 
are bound to occur between different powers exercising 
the rights and privileges of " interest spheres/' and 
joint dominion in any shape would make matters much 



The Integrity of China 5 1 

worse. Moreover, in case of other wars, waged per- 
haps in another hemisphere or at home, these " interest 
spheres " would yet unavoidably participate in the evils 
and losses incident to warfare. 

And in all this we have left out of consideration the 
question whether the Chinese themselves would su- 
pinely acquiesce in foreign domination, in the rule of 
the hated foreigner — the man whom they look upon 
as a barbarian. This may be doubted. 

It has been stated many times that the Chinaman is 
devoid of patriotism. An American who by reason 
of almost lifelong residence in China knows the people 
well, Rev. Arthur H. Smith, sets up this claim in his 
very interesting book on Chinese social life. Others 
have done the same. But these men wrote before the 
late Boxer rising. And this internal movement in 
China seems to disprove such a contention. All 
through the Boxer rising there were many evidences of 
what, if it had occurred with us or in some western 
countries, would be called patriotism. Beyond a doubt, 
if love and pride of country have been slumbering in 
the Chinese mind and heart for many years, there seem 
to be ample signs of a reawakening. 

Let the world not add another glaring misconcep- 
tion to those that have been prevalent about China, in 
denying to the nation outright a feeling which seems 
in some degree, everywhere inborn in the human 
bosom. Let us rather conclude that Chinese patriot- 
ism is, like so many other things Chinese, only of a 
different type from ours. 



CHAPTER VI 
RESULTS OF THE WAR TO THIS NATION 

It may be objected that it is rather taking time by 
the forelock to devote a chapter to the results of a war 
which at this writing is still in vigorous progress. 
That objection may be urged still more when it is ad- 
mitted by the writer at the outset that he lays no claim 
to being a prophet or the son of a prophet. 

To define distinctly the coming results of the present 
duel between the Russian and the Jap, and to weigh 
accurately the composite elements that will form its 
outcome, and not only for the belligerents, but for the 
world in general and this country in particular, we 
shall have, of course, to wait for some time after the 
treaty of peace has been signed. No attempt will be 
made here to forestall events. 

But there are certain things which, putting two and 
two together, may be stated even now, with some 
degree of confidence. 

Russia, whether she ultimately wins or loses, will be 
greatly weakened. In any event, she will issue from 
this war financially impotent, with her credit strained 
to the utmost. Perhaps for decades to come she will 
practically be out of the race in Far Asia, commercially 
and industrially, and to a considerable extent polit- 
ically. 

Obeying her internal necessities, Russia's economic 
policy, both in Europe and Asia, is and must remain 

52 



Results of the War to This Nation 53 

monopolistic and protective. In any case, at the close 
of this war, she will have to enter on a course of in- 
ternal reforms, taxing her energies fully. She will 
have to build up a national industry on broader and 
sounder foundations than her financial genius, Witte, 
was able to do, hurried on as he was by the powerful 
Old Russian Party and by the urgent demands of the 
hour. Her finances crippled for many years to come ; 
her enterprise gone; herself no longer a profitable field 
for foreign capital — that, in a few broad strokes, will 
be her condition. 

Japan, in several of the above respects, will be simi- 
larly situated, although her enterprising spirit will be 
undiminished, probably even heightened. But the 
war will have proved an enormous strain on her 
finances, too, and on all of her material resources. 
These and other facts will greatly handicap her, for a 
number of years at least, in the coming fierce strife 
among the ruling nations for commercial supremacy in 
the Far East. 

We shall have England and Germany as our main 
competitors in the Pacific. Either of the two will 
prove a formidable rival. 

Now, as to England, the case is plain. She is com- 
mitted to the " open door." If we can beat England in 
her own home market — as we have been doing of recent 
years — we surely can in Far Asia, for that part of the 
world is so much nearer to us, and will be still nearer 
after the completion of the Panama Canal. The 
Philippines give us an excellent lever and base for all 
our political and commercial operations. Besides, the 
chief commodities in demand in the Far East — cotton 
goods, petroleum, hardware, agricultural and indus- 
trial machinery, machine tools, flour, and canned goods 



54 The War and Its Outcome 

— are precisely the things we can produce more cheaply 
and in better quality than any other nation. We need 
not fear competition with England. 

As to Germany. Although of pro-Russian sym- 
pathies and affiliations, she, too, is in favour of the 
" open door." Her interests demand this imperatively. 
In Manchuria, where the United States is strong, com- 
mercially speaking, Germany has never obtained a com- 
mercial foothold. But in Central and Northern China 
proper, she is and will be our most formidable rival. 

The assets in Germany's favour are very great. Her 
ambitions are greater. The Carolines and Kiao Chao 
are not enough for her. Unless checked, she will exert 
paramount sway over the whole of Shan Tung prov- 
ince, — one of the most important in China, — with a 
population of 38,000,000. 

But Germany has her weaknesses. Her financial 
and commercial horizon is too narrow. She displays 
extreme caution in risking capital, and there is neither 
boldness of conception nor of execution in her mer- 
chants. Officialism and bureaucracy are great hin- 
drances to her. Her sea route to China is too far, in 
comparison with ours, and land routes are closed to 
her. 

France, too, will be our competitor, but no dreaded 
one. 

All these facts will be shown in detail in another 
chapter; the above is a mere outline. 

Now, how about the United States? 

The United States will be in an exceptionally strong 
position in the coming struggle for supremacy in the 
whole Pacific. She will be in a condition to reap the 
main harvest when it shall be ripe. 

But is, then, the supremacy in the Pacific of such 



Results of the War to This Nation 55 

enormous importance to us? It surely is. To show 
this it will be necessary to cast a glance at our own 
internal conditions. 

There are three factors that chiefly enter into play 
in this connection. 

EXHAUSTION OF ARABLE PUBLIC LANDS 

The first is the exhaustion of our arable public lands. 
True, there are still more than 500,000,000 acres of 
vacant government land, but the mad rush for Okla- 
homa and the Cherokee reservation, when thrown open 
to settlement a few years ago, showed how little of this 
remaining land is arable. Much of this remnant of 
vacant public lands would afford good grazing, and 
Major Powell, an authority on this question, estimates 
that 100,000,000 acres of it can be reclaimed for agri- 
culture by irrigation. But this would mean a task 
beyond private enterprise. In any case, what is left 
of arable public lands is a mere trifle, comparatively 
speaking, for a rapidly expanding and increasing 
nation — a nation which received during the past five 
years some 3,000,000 immigrants, not to mention 
its own natural increase in population. 

Indeed, the practical exhaustion of new agricultural 
land has been an established fact for some years back. 
It has brought about a counter-emigration from this 
country to Canada. This is a curious and very sig- 
nificant fact. The culmination of Canadian immigra- 
tion into the United States was reached in 1890. At 
that time there were 392,802 Canadians within our 
borders. During the decade 1890-1900 Canadian im- 
migration dropped to 3064. But that does not tell the 
whole story ; for to offset this small Canadian immigra- 
tion, there has been going on a far larger American 



56 The War and Its Outcome 

emigration into Canada. Over 12,000 American set- 
tlers crossed the Canadian line in 1900; the number 
rose to 17,987 in 1901, and to 24,099 in the fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1902, when the figures for American 
immigration on Canadian soil were larger than those 
from the whole of continental Europe. The United 
States, then, has lost to its northern neighbour about 
55,000 citizens within those three years ; and even these 
reports are not complete, for they do not include a large 
number of American settlers who trekked across the 
Canadian border in their own wagons. In 1903 immi- 
gration from the United States to Canada rose even to 
49,673, being 8000 in excess of the British immigrant 
contingent. 

These American settlers were all of the substantial 
kind, nearly all farmers from the Prairie states. Their 
average wealth was estimated by the Canadian author- 
ities at something over $3000 per family in money, 
cattle, and other property. This sudden turning of the 
tide of migration is due, as already said, to the ex- 
haustion of our supply of free arable land. The fact 
marks a crisis in the relation of our population to our 
area. Abundance of free land gave the United States 
the distinguishing characteristic of a youthful coun- 
try. That point has now been passed. 

Hereafter, at an increasing rate, American emigra- 
tion, mostly from the Prairie states, to Manitoba and 
British Columbia will be a permanent feature. 

Within one hundred years the population of the 
United States grew from 6,000,000 to 70,000,000. 
Our next census will show not less than 90,000,000. 
More than 4^ million farms have been brought under 
cultivation. Half a thousand cities have been built. 
For forty years there was an average of 16,000 acres 



Results of the War to This Nation 57 

of wild land subdued daily. Railroad growth has been 
on a par. The latest official figures show 221,000 
miles of railroads. 

Referring to what Americans have accomplished, 
Henry M. Stanley said : " Treble their number of 
ordinary Europeans could not have surpassed them in 
what they have done. The story of their achievements 
reads like an epic of the heroic age." 

Mulhall, the noted British statistician, in 1895 esti- 
mated the energy of the United States at 129,306,- 
000,000 foot-tons daily, nearly as much as that of 
Britain, Germany, and France combined. Mulhall 
adds : " If we take a survey of mankind in ancient 
or modern times, as regards the physical, mechanical, 
and intellectual force of nations, we find nothing to 
compare with the United States." 

It is not strange that this amazing energy, applied 
to resources which are perhaps unequalled, has made 
us the richest nation in the world. 

But the western limits have been reached. Stand- 
ing on the shores of the Pacific, farther west is the 
East. 

Hereafter the main commercial movement will be 
between the temperate and the tropical zone. This 
movement has already set in. European powers within 
the last twenty years have seized 5,000,000 square 
miles, an area far larger than the whole continent of 
Europe, and all of it lying in tropical or subtropical 
regions. 

During the past century Europe's population in- 
creased 50 per cent., her manufactures 300 per cent. 
— from $5,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000 annually. 
Therefore, the increasing necessity of foreign mar- 
kets to Europe. These markets are now best found in 



58 The War and Its Outcome 

the tropics. Formerly the commercial movement was 
mainly east to west; it will now become mainly north 
to south and west to east. 

Commerce, like water, flows only where there is 
inequality. A dead level of absolute equality means 
stagnation. Inequality or unlikeness of natural 
products, and differences among peoples, promote com- 
merce. Development of the belated races, many of 
them centuries behind others, will take a line of its 
own. Neither the Malay nor the negro, the Chinese 
nor the Hindoo, will ever become at all like ourselves, 
no matter if all the adjuncts of civilisation and all its 
essentials are put within their keeping. 

NEW MANUFACTURING SUPREMACY 

The second important fact for us is our new manu- 
facturing supremacy. 

The United States long since was conceded the first 
place in agriculture. With 5 per cent, of the world's 
population, we produce 32 per cent, of the world's 
food-supply. Russia is the next largest producer. 
But she, with 8 per cent, of the human family, sup- 
plies less than 19 per cent, of the world's food. 

To-day the United States is admitted to be the 
greatest manufacturer as well. This is not a tran- 
sitory fact; it will remain so. Our new manufac- 
turing supremacy, though young, rests on secure 
foundations. The balance of trade in our favour of 
late years has been steadily an enormous one. It has 
risen in the same proportion in which balances on the 
wrong side have increased in the leading manufac- 
turing countries of Europe, notably Germany and 
England. In 1898, for the first time in our history, 
American manufactured exports exceeded manufac- 



Results of the War to This Nation 59 

tured imports. Since then the matter has gone on 
at the same rate. 

Let us consider for a moment what are the foun- 
dations on which this manufacturing supremacy 
rests : 

(1) An abundance of cheap coal of good quality. 
The coal supply of the United States is several times 
that of all Europe, and it is practically inexhaustible. 
There are 194,000 square miles of coal beds in this 
country, twenty-one times the area of all the coal fields 
of Great Britain. In i860 we produced 15,200,000 
tons of coal; in 1900 we produced 213,000,000, a trifle 
more than one-third of the world's production. 

(2) Cheap and abundant iron of good quality — 
next to coal the most important factor, indispensable 
to manufacture on any scale. Iron to-day is cheaper 
at the pit mouth in the United States than in Great 
Britain. But conversion of the ore into the finished 
product is also cheaper, despite higher wages. England, 
Germany, and France for years have been sending over 
their experts to fathom the apparent mystery, only to 
return with the report that the thing can't be helped, 
both raw stuffs and manufactured products coming 
lower than in Europe. In steel and iron American 
supremacy is now generally acknowledged. We left 
both England and Germany behind in the race several 
years ago. To-day the United States produces nearly 
one-half of all the steel made in the world. 

(3) Low labour cost. This nowise means low 
wages. But it does mean that for every dollar paid 
in wages to an American labourer or mechanic, the 
American employer gets more labour out of his help 
than does the European out of his. With $15 
being the average weekly wage of an operative in 



60 The War and Its Outcome 

America, and $4 being his average pay per week 
in Germany, the American employer is still ahead. 
These are well-known facts, pointed out in innumer- 
able consular reports. The simple explanation of the 
phenomenon is : Workmen in America are quicker 
both in brain and hand than those in Europe, partly 
because of a more stimulating climate, and partly 
owing to a better diet. American machinery, too, is 
usually superior, but with precisely the same machine 
the American workman will turn out more product 
than the foreigner. An additional factor in this line 
is Yankee ingenuity and inventiveness. The best 
available statistics show that the productive energy of 
each inhabitant of the United States is 1940 foot-tons 
daily, while in Europe it is only 990 foot-tons. This 
means that 75,000,000 Americans are achieving as 
much in useful labour as 150,000,000 Europeans. In 
some branches of labour the difference is even greater ; 
the American farm labourer produces four times as 
much foodstuffs as does the average European farm 
labourer. 

(4) An exhaustless supply of cheap raw materials. 
The geographical and soil conditions of the United 
States are such that everything is produced, except- 
ing luxuries. In cotton, one of the most important 
items, we still enjoy a practical monopoly. Though 
the European colonising nations are making strenuous 
efforts to oust the United States from that proud posi- 
tion, it will require many years, even under rapid 
conditions of development in their tropical and sub- 
tropical possessions, to accomplish that. 

(5) Easy access to markets. This country lies 
midway between Europe and Africa on the east and 
Asia and Australasia on the west, while another con- 



Results of the War to This Nation 6 1 

tinent adjoins us on the south. Our coasts are washed 
by two great oceans. However, after the completion 
of the isthmian canal these present advantages will be 
more than doubled. 

Of the above-named five advantages four are as 
inalienable and permanent as is our location. It is 
probable, therefore, that our manufacturing suprem- 
acy will increase rather than diminish. 

The time seems near at hand when the prophecy of 
Mr. Gladstone concerning the United States will come 
true : " She will probably become what we are now, 
the head servant in the great household of the world, 
the employer of all employed, because her service will 
be the most and ablest." 

There is, however, one flaw to this calculation. A 
time must come when American goods will be carried 
in American bottoms. At present we are still paying 
British, German, Scandinavian, Italian, and French 
vessels a matter of $175,000,000 a year for ocean 
transportation, and but an insignificant part of our 
foreign commerce is carried on under the Stars and 
Stripes. The movement is all in that direction, how- 
ever, and with the impetus given to American enter- 
prise by the acquisition of the Philippines, Porto Rico, 
and Hawaii, the opening up of the Far East as a great 
field of commercial expansion, our recognition as a 
great world power, and the ambition thus engendered 
to deserve that title by the rapid growth of our navy, 
and most of all by the necessity of larger foreign 
markets, as well as by reason of the Panama Canal, — 
whenever that shall be finished, — American shipping 
will once more rise to the heights it occupied at the 
outbreak of the Civil War. 

One thing, though, must be borne in mind — our 



62 The War and Its Outcome 

enormous carrying trade on the rivers and lakes and 
along the coasts of this country. Senator Frye sev- 
eral years ago computed the tonnage of this trade at 
about 8,000,000, greater than the corresponding trade 
of France, Germany, and England combined. 
Through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie in eight months 
passed vessels with a combined tonnage of 16,500,000. 
Our lake fleet alone moves annually 168,000,000 tons 
of freight. More ships sail the Detroit River than 
enter Liverpool or London. 

To us foreign markets are a new necessity. To 
understand this necessity, several things must be taken 
into account. For many years the American manu- 
facturer bent all his energies to securing for himself 
the home market, a market so rapidly growing, both 
in number and purchasing power of consumers, that 
with it the foreign market could nowise be compared 
in importance. This aim was reached in its entirety 
but a few years ago. Since then we have permanently 
got to the point pithily summarised by Carroll D. 
Wright, the Commissioner of the Labour Bureau in 
Washington : 

" It is incontrovertible that the present manufac- 
turing and mechanical plant of the United States is 
greater — far greater — than is needed to supply the 
demand; yet it is constantly being enlarged, and in 
the present state of human nature there is no way 
of preventing the enlargement." Beside the mad pas- 
sion for gain, there is no charm in rest, lettered ease, 
travel, still less in labour for the general good — char- 
ity, education, the state ; the ruling passion must rage 
on, business must be expanded, regardless of profit 
and with eyes closed to impending loss. Instead of 
making ourselves more homes, and more beautiful 



Results of the War to This Nation 63 

things and cultured people in them, we cherish the 
tenement-house and the narrow life, and go on piling 
up and shoving out what we are pleased to call 
" goods, goods, GOODS." 

Manufactured production has become enormous in 
this country — overgrown, disproportioned, bloated. 
In no country and at no previous time was this pro- 
duction ever equalled in volume or value — or at least, 
price. In comparison with its total, our present ex- 
ports to foreign countries play but a pitiful figure. 
Whereas England's exports are larger than her home 
consumption, and whereas Germany's exports are 
nearly one-half of her total manufactures, our own 
exports form but a beggarly fraction of the whole. 
True, the purchasing power of our home market is 
unrivalled, even during times of depression, and far 
surpasses that of the other leading nations. But, as 
we have seen, the limit has been reached. 

Our methods of production have been improved 
upon, simplified, and correlated, until they seem well- 
nigh perfect. This has played a conspicuous part in 
winning our manufacturing supremacy. But there is 
an obverse side to this. In many lines and establish- 
ments the question of running at full capacity or no 
has come to play a vital part. For large numbers of 
our factories running at full capacity — even when 
selling at very low margins, or disposing of part of 
the output at actual loss — means prosperity, and run- 
ning at half capacity means nothing less than ruin. 
This is the penalty which a highly wrought system has 
to pay. 

Glutted markets at home are now the rule. If at 
this present time a general panic such as the one of 
1873, or even the one of 1893, should overtake us, the 



64 The War and Its Outcome 

effects would be far more disastrous than any ever 
heard of — countless armies of men and women 
scourged by enforced idleness, and hunger and social 
upheavals beggaring description. 

To find new outlets for our manufactured products 
has, therefore, become not an urgent need, but an abso- 
lute necessity. From one point of view inventions 
and labour-saving appliances of every kind will make 
matters in this respect worse instead of better. At 
Homestead, Pa., with about the same number of men, 
the output to-day is six times as large as it was in 
1892. 

England was once the workshop of the world. 
France, and later Germany, decided to supply their 
own home markets. They succeeded, and now, like 
the United States, they, too, are seeking outlets for 
their surplus products. 

All this means that the great manufacturing peoples 
are about entering on an industrial conflict, the 
bitterness of which and the skill and energy of 
which have never been parallelled in the history of 
the world. 

Already foreign ministers of both Germany and 
Austria have publicly and officially declared that it 
may be necessary to form a continental European 
league against our growing commerce. It would be 
an easy matter for them to shut us out by a protective 
tariff. 

Great Britain, for more than half a century past 
vowed to absolute free trade, shows more than signs 
of unrest. She sees the writing on the wall. " Joe " 
Chamberlain, with his strong following, is trying to 
convert the masses of England to his own conviction: 
That England must retrace her steps; that she is no 



Results of the War to This Nation 65 

longer able to fly the free-trade flag, no longer able to 
contend with us. 

The aggressions of our tariff are at last to be resisted 
in kind. 

With all these signs and portents on the horizon, 
what is to become of our manufactured surplus ? How 
and where shall we find markets for this increasing 
surplus, when even those now remaining are in ques- 
tion? At present they must be, above all, the Orient 
and the Tropics, more particularly China and South 
America. 

The prospective results of this present Russo-Jap- 
anese war, then, will be, so far as we are concerned, 
greatly enlarged opportunities, commercial ones first 
and political ones after, in the Far East. Two of our 
most formidable competitors there, Russia and Japan, 
will issue from the fight much weaker than they entered 
it. This, to put it cold-bloodedly, will be to our ad- 
vantage. Japan and Russia, will, nevertheless, remain 
our good customers, as, indeed, why should they not? 
Only their powers of competition with us will have be- 
come curtailed. 

An important item on our credit sheet in this con- 
nection will be the good will of China, and the great 
loss of prestige of Russia throughout Asia. So far 
this prestige, altogether political, has been Russia's 
greatest asset in that whole region. But whether 
Russia shall ultimately achieve victory or suffer defeat, 
the mere fact that little Japan was powerful enough to 
give immense Russia such a severe tussle will be 
enough to lead to a great loss of prestige for Russia. 
This will react on her position in Persia, Afghanistan, 
Tibet, Mongolia, and as far as northern India. Add 
to this the further fact that commercial expansion will 



66 The War and Its Outcome 

have become impossible for Russia at the close of this 
war, inasmuch as she will have to reconstruct her 
young industry after the complete collapse in which 
it has been since 1900, and it will be seen that a splen- 
did field is opening out for American push and enter- 
prise throughout Central Asia and China. 









THE FAR EAST 



CHAPTER VII 
THE NEW JAPAN 

If Egypt were to rise again to splendour and power, 
if her people of their own strength were to transform 
the Nile delta into what it once was — the " corn-cham- 
ber of the world," — if the Land of the Pharaohs, we 
say, were to do all this by her own sheer will and 
energy, the task would not be a harder one than that 
which fell to Japan's share in our own time. 

The Briton took this task for Egypt upon his shoul- 
ders, and within twenty years he has wrought miracles. 
But even to-day the trudging, perspiring fellaheen 
dwell in miserable mud hovels, and the tax-gatherer 
lays his heavy hand on the naked brown shoulders of 
the poor wretches. Yet Egypt, even to-day, is a land 
of unmatched fertility, producing two regular crops an- 
nually, and the eternal Nile's gifts are as bounteous as 
ever. 

What, then, shall we say of Japan's case? Cer- 
tainly ancient Nippon is a lovely land, charming in its 
natural scenery, pretty to the eye in its garments of 
subdued greens, browns, and greys, encircled all about 
by the purple sea. 

But Japan does not front the Mediterranean, old 
cradle of civilisation, and she has no Father Nile to 
bestow plentiful crops on her. She lies far away to 
the east, split up into innumerable islands, farther off 
even then remote Cathay. Steep and tall mountains, 

69 



jo The Far East 

picturesque in their outlines and capped with snow, 
but barren of subsistence, are occupying half of her 
territory, and Fusiyama, fabled from of yore and 
sacred to every loyal Jap's heart, still pours forth vol- 
umes of death-laden smoke. 

Neither is the soil of Japan very fruitful. The 
husbandman's reward is meagre. True, the sea and 
the rivers everywhere yield fish and other sea food. 

Isolation means stagnation and gradual decay. 
With a traditional history thousands of years old and 
reaching back into those hazy mists when gods walked 
the earth, the country had fallen under the curse of the 
Shogunate, and had become like one of its own hermit 
crabs, that odd creature which the lapping ocean wave 
now and then leaves stranded on the sandy beach. 
She had encloistered herself from all communication 
with the outside " barbarian," seeking sufficiency in 
herself. 

From a centuries-long, death-like slumber she awoke 
when Commodore Perry arrived in her harbours, offer- 
ing the good will and the friendship of this nation. 
That was fifty years ago, and from that recent day 
dates the resurrection of Japan. Even then it re- 
quired another number of years to free her people 
from the thraldom of the Shogun, and it was not until 
after the revolution of 1868 and the re-establishment 
of the Mikado on his throne in Tokio, that Japan was 
in a condition to set out on her marvellous career of 
modern progress. 

For another number of years internal strife weak- 
ened her. The proud samurai class, her feudal no- 
bility, would not easily succumb to the irruption of 
western spirit. That period of trouble ended in 1888, 
when constitutional government was formally adopted. 



The New Japan 71 

Only six years later, in 1894, Japan whipped China 
in one of the most wonderful wars of the nineteenth 
century, a war where the pigmy was pitted against 
the giant, and where, nevertheless, the giant had not 
the ghost of a chance from the outset. 

And now, ten years later, Japan is again in the field, 
but this time in a death-grapple with a foe worthy of 
her steel. Again a giant, but this time one with hard- 
ened muscle and ribs of iron, not one of flabby flesh 
and flaccid sinew. 

Let us examine on what foundations rests the mag- 
ical self-confidence of this wonderful little people. 

The latest official statistics show the population of 
Japan to be 44,805,937 ; to that must be added, roundly, 
3,500,000 for Formosa, that rugged island off the 
Chinese southern coast which Japan won, as her sole 
spoils, in the war of 1894. Altogether, then, the 
Mikado bears sway over 48,305,937 subjects, scat- 
tered over nearly 4000 islands, with a total area of 
162,153 square miles. Only 500 of these islands, 
however, are inhabited, the remaining isles being mere 
heaps of rocks. The chief islands are five in number, 
the Hondo, or " Main Land," with an area of 87,771 
square miles ; Shikoku, south of and separated from 
Hondo by a shallow channel, with an area of 7030 
square miles; Kiushiu, west of this province of Shi- 
koku, with the Bungo Channel between, area 15,587 
square miles; Yezo, north of Hondo, with an area of 
30,143 square miles; and Formosa, area I3,4 X 8 square 
miles. 

The Japanese archipelago occupies the same latitude 
as that part of North America between Savannah and 
Halifax. Formosa, more to the south, lies between 
the same parallels as Tampa and Havana. The chief 



72 The Far East 

group is separated from the Philippines to the south 
by the Bashi Channel, from China by the Formosa 
Channel, 90 to 100 miles wide; from Corea by Brough- 
ton Channel, less. than 25 miles wide; from the Russian 
island of Saghalien by La Perouse Strait, 25 miles 
wide, and from Kamtchatka by the Kurile Strait. Be- 
tween the Japanese archipelago and the coasts of Corea 
and Manchuria lies the Sea of Japan. 

Rice, the chief food of the Japanese, is the most 
important crop, and rice lands are worth three times 
other arable land. In 1903, about 7,000,000 acres of 
rice lands produced 240,000,000 bushels of rice, that 
commodity forming also an important article of export. 
Sake, a liquor distilled from rice, is likewise one of 
the most important products of the country. Last 
year 173,051,000 gallons of sake were produced by 
27,789 establishments. 

Next in importance is barley. Some 103,000,000 
bushels of it were produced in 1903, grown on 1,579,- 
096 acres. Of rye, 37,176,867 bushels were raised on 
1,697,850 acres. Wheat was produced to the amount 
of 21,006,776 bushels, on 1,147,747 acres. To silk 
culture were devoted 736,933 acres, and 120,702 acres 
to tea, producing 63,210,100 pounds. A large propor- 
tion of this tea was exported, mostly to the United 
States, its flavour being relished in no other foreign 
country. 

The soil is held for the most part — since the abolition 
of the feudal system — by the people who work it. The 
average holding is about one acre, valued at $90. 
The rearing of cattle for dairy purposes has only 
recently been introduced into Japan. In former times, 
cattle were used only as beasts of burden. As a result 
of Buddhist teaching, the people never ate beef, and 



The New Japan 73 

regarded butter, milk, and cheese as poisonous. Since 
the opening of Japan, the government has encouraged 
dairies and the breeding of cattle, horses, and sheep, 
so that at present there are in Japan about 1,652,530 
head of cattle and 1,572,607 horses. Of sheep there 
are very few. 

As to the revenue and expenditure of Japan for the 
year ending March 31, 1904, we find the tax on sake 
(rice liquor) the largest, amounting to $33,250,000, 
the tax on land, $23,500,000, being next in importance ; 
customs duties (very low), $8,300,000; post and tele- 
graph service, $13,000,000; government tobacco mo- 
nopoly, $6,300,000; and sugar excise, income tax, 
business tax, forests, railway profits, Chinese indemnity, 
and other inland taxes. Together, the revenue of the 
government from these various sources was $126,- 
000,000. 

The main expenditures were: For the army, $20,- 
000,000; navy, $11,000,000; national debt charges, 
$21,000,000; public instruction, $2,500,000; and for 
foreign and home affairs, department of justice, the 
imperial court ($1,500,000), and minor purposes — al- 
together inordinary expenditures, $90,000,000 ; for ex- 
traordinary expenditures, $33,000,000. 

Wages run extremely low, when compared with .a 
western standard, but much higher than in China. 
Since 1887, wages have increased between 250'and«300 
per cent. A few specimen figures are : 

Carpenters, 30 cents a day; stone masons, 30 cents; 
brickmakers, 22 cents; shoemakers, 22 cents; tailors, 
from 22 to 31 cents; blacksmiths, 25 cents; lacquer- 
ers, 25 cents; labourers, 14 cents. 

These figures, low as they seem to us, are from three 
to four times higher than those prevailing in China. 



74 The Far East 

Now let us look at the purchasing power of these 
wages. In 1903, average prices of principal commodi- 
ties in Japan were : 

Rice, about $1.25 per bushel, or about 3 cents per 
pound; barley, about 40 cents per bushel: sake (rice 
liquor), next to tea the favourite beverage of the Jap- 
anese, per koku of 220 pounds, about $16; tea, about 
14 cents per pound; leaf tobacco, about 14 cents per 
pound. 

Since Japan was opened to the world, it has been 
rapidly growing in wealth. The cotton industry par- 
ticularly has advanced. Spinning and weaving have 
been the most important industries of Japan since time 
immemorial. Before the introduction of machinery 
there were spinning wheels in nearly every home. 
Osaka is now the centre of the cotton industry, where 
there have been erected so many factories that it has 
been called the Fall River of Japan. In 1888 the 
number of spindles was 113,856; in 1901, 1,181,762; 
in 1904, 1,502,346. Male and female operatives em- 
ployed, 63,000; average daily wages for males, about 
17 cents; females, about 10 cents. The silk industry is 
another important' one. Noted kinds of silk are the 
nishijin, hachijo, kaiki, habutai (for handkerchiefs). 
In 1 90 1, raw silk was produced to the extent of some 
14,000,000 pounds. 

About 12,000,000 pounds of sugar were produced 
last year; of beer, about 12,000 tons. There were dis- 
tilled some 440,000 tons of sake. 

In 1 90 1, the capital invested in cotton-spinning, and 
factories for cotton goods, was about $100,000,000. 
Numerous new mills' have sprung up since that date. 
The short East Indian staple is preferred because of its 
cheapness, YJ 



The New Japan j$ 

The Bank of Japan is working with a capital of $15,- 
500,000; there are six great banks, and 1802 small 
ones. In 681 savings banks, there were deposits $139,- 
534,330, or $2.79 per head of population. 

A large new government foundry was established in 
Wakamatsu, at an outlay of $5,000,000; nearby are 
large coal mines. 

The increase of Japan's foreign trade has been five- 
fold since 1888. In 1891, it amounted to $89,500,- 
000; in 1903, it was $298,000,000. 

Japan's trade with China has increased more than 
fourfold since 1893, both exports and imports. 

Her exports of silk have risen since 1885 from $5,- 
503,172 to $38,430,239 in 1902. Even her waste silk 
exports now amount to a couple of million dollars. In 
silk tissues of various kinds, she exported in 1902 al- 
most $17,000,000. Of rice she exported, in the same 
year, $3,340,544; of tea, $5,242,009. 

Cotton goods of various kinds she exported in 1902 
to the extent of $12,500,000; coal, $8,635,209; porce- 
lains, $1,230,772; of copper, . coarse and refined, $5,- 
130,992. 

The leading countries from which Japan obtains her 
imports are : England, with $26,000,000 ; the United 
States, $21,485,000; China, $14,890,200; Germany, 
$14,491,800, and British India, $11,703,000. This 
country is the best market for Japanese exports, as we 
have seen elsewhere. Great Britain and Hong Kong 
stand next ; China, with $15,886,200, third. To Corea, 
Japan exported last year over $5,000,000 worth. 
China is Japan's best customer for cotton goods. 

As Japan has evolved within a few years a power- 
ful navy, small in size, but most efficient, so she, too, 
has bent her energies in the direction of creating a 



76 The Far East 

large and able merchant marine. She has now four 
shipyards for the building of steel steamers, located, 
respectively, in Nagasaki, Yokosuki, Kobe, and Uraga. 
The tonnage of steamers which passed Japanese ports 
in 1900 was 9,000,000, of which 3,000,000 were 
Japan-made. The largest steamer so far built in 
Japan is the Aki Mam, 6000 tons, of the Japan-Seat- 
tle line, operated by the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, built 
in Nagasaki ; a new one of 7500 tons is now being 
built for the same line. A number of battleships have 
been built for Japan in Yokosuki, two of them being 
the Akashi and Suma, which participated in the battle 
of Chemulpo. A dry-dock is now being built in Na- 
gasaki for vessels of 16,000 tons. There are fifty 
shipyards within the island empire for the construc- 
tion of sailing junks. 

Japan began with the building of railroads in 1870, 
the Tokio- Yokohama line being first. The total mile- 
age of railroads, in 1903, was 5015. In 1901 the 
mileage was 2039. There are 300 American locomo- 
tives in operation, although England and Germany 
supplied larger numbers of them. 

The manufacture of paper employs a greater pro- 
portion of people in Japan than in any other country. 
Japanese paper has proved superior to that of many 
countries of a far older knowledge of its manufacture, 
and the 65,514 paper establishments of Japan in 1902 
turned out a product worth $12,272,754. 

The mineral deposits of Japan are not especially 
rich, and compare nowise with those of China. Coal 
beds exist, however, both large and of fair quality. 
The best coal comes from Takashima, on the island of 
Kiushiu. The coal output in 1902 amounted to 8,200,- 
000 tons. From the iron mines in the same year 63,- 



The New Japan 77 

000,000 pounds were taken. Copper mines exist in 
abundance, but those of lead, gold, and silver furnish 
only small quantities of valuable ore. Japan has four 
well-equipped dockyards, capable of both constructing 
and repairing ships. 

The Japanese army is a very recent creation. Mili- 
tary service is compulsory, and so far as military in- 
struction is concerned, Japan has taken Germany as a 
model. The same is true of organisation, the army 
being divided into three groups, viz., the permanent 
establishment, consisting of 7500 officers and 190,000 
men; the reserve, of 35,000 additional men; and a 
" territorial reserve," which would bring another 200,- 
000 men into line. There is also a loosely organised, 
and not very well drilled body for " territorial de- 
fence," numbering about 600,000. The artillery num- 
bers 1200 guns, and the cavalry 90,000 horses. The 
latter is the poorest branch of the Japanese military 
service. 

In electric and horse street railways, Japan is also 
well supplied. In fact, electrical science stands on a 
high plane there, and both the telephone and telegraph 
services (being entirely under government control) are 
well managed. A system of wireless telegraphy, dif- 
fering from Marconi's, was invented by an official in 
the Japanese navy. His invention was utilised in the 
recent naval engagement at Chemulpo. 

Though as yet a poor country — when applying our 
own standard — Japan has produced, of late, a number 
of daring and successful financiers. The most noted 
of these is Baron Shibuzawa, called by his admiring 
countrymen the " J. Pierpont Morgan of Japan." 

These are a few of the data regarding the marvellous 
development of late of Japan's material resources. But 



78 The Far East 

this does not end the tale. In intellectual life her re- 
suscitation has been as complete. She has successfully- 
adopted modern methods of government and educa- 
tion. Her public schools far outrank both in number, 
efficiency, and money expenditure, those of Russia. 
This test of civilisation is regarded by many as in the 
last analysis the decisive one. If so, Japan stands the 
test. More than n per cent, of her population in 1903 
were pupils in her public grammar schools, 80,000 in 
the middle schools, 6000 in the higher schools, and over 
4000 in her colleges and universities. All these insti- 
tutions are supported either by the respective com- 
munities, or by the imperial government. There are, 
besides, many private schools and colleges. There are 
night schools for the children of the working classes in 
cities. There are also technological night schools for 
them. The government in every way encourages the 
cause of education. 

That Japanese science, young as it is, already 
amounts to a good deal, is proved by the fact that a 
number of very important discoveries, more particu- 
larly in medicine and chemistry, have been made by 
Japanese scholars. 

In invention, the Japanese have progressed at a 
steady rate. In 1887, the Japanese patent office re- 
ceived 906 applications for letters patent, out of which 
109 were actually granted. In 1902, the number of ap- 
plications had risen to 3095, and the letters granted to 

871. 

The Japanese newspaper and periodical press is al- 
ready quite respectable. There are 480 daily papers 
within the empire. Of these, 1 1 are of national repu- 
tation. Several of them have a circulation of 100,000 
and more. Magazines there are innumerable. A favour- 



The New Japan 79 

ite form of the Japanese periodical is the technical and 
economic one. Literature is now in a transition state. 



FORMOSA 
ISLAND 




The Japanese national parliament is patriotic and 
morally clean; but constitutional government there is 
still in its infantile stage, and there is decidedly too 



80 The Far East 

much talking and " play to the galleries." Neverthe- 
less, at every critical time this body has not been found 
wanting. A proof of this was given on March 29, 
last, six weeks after the outbreak of the war. The 
special session, convened to take financial measures 
proposed by the government to meet the expenses of 
the war, voted almost unanimously the special taxes 
required for the purpose, amounting to a matter of 
$31,000,000 — a sum large for a population whose 
average annual earnings figure up to only a little over 
$50 per caput. The new financial programme 
adopted on this occasion will considerably modify the 
Japanese customs tariff and the conditions of economic 
life of the country. 

Special mention seems called for to show the Jap- 
anese in yet another role, that of coloniser in the island 
of Formosa. 

Unfriendly critics have claimed that Japan, since 
1895, has neglected her part in this respect. And with- 
out taking the explanatory facts into consideration, 
there is some ground for this contention. 

Formosa is a very valuable island, and of sufficient 
size to afford the opportunity for millions of " Japs " to 
settle and develop its resources. The present popula- 
tion of the island is about 3,500,000. It presents a 
mingling of races, in good part Chinese, both from 
north and south, and speaking greatly differing dia- 
lects of Chinese. In the eastern half of the island, very 
mountainous and rugged, there are savage tribes of 
aborigines ; a considerable portion of the people are 
half-breeds. The mixed race, called Pepo Hwan, 
seems the most promising. 

There are practically no good harbours in the island. 
Kee Lung and Tarn Sui are the best of these harbours, 



The New Japan 81 

situated at the mouths of rivers, and the Japanese gov- 
ernment, at great expense, is now rendering them ser- 
viceable. An Ping, the harbour of the capital city of 
Tai Nan Fu, is shallow and without shelter, and Ta 
Kau is even worse. 

The history of the island, during the last century, 
was a very troubled one. Without going into details, 
it is enough to say that the " Black Flags," lawless and 
troublesome bands, during a space of many years upset 
all orderly government. 

Since Japan's acquisition of the island, something 
has been done to mend matters. The rebels and ban- 
dits were overcome by main force. Public order was 
restored everywhere. A system of administration, re- 
sembling the Japanese, was successfully inaugurated. 

Internal improvements were made in various direc- 
tions, such as the building of good roads and the deep- 
ening of the harbours, the establishment of a postal 
service and the protection of internal traffic; regular 
garrisons, officered by Japanese, but made up of na- 
tive soldiers, were established. A system of public 
education has been introduced, Christian missions 
have been encouraged within the island, and the 
whole of it is well-policed. 

Industrially and commercially, matters have not im- 
proved so much. Rice and tea culture occupy the 
bulk of the population. The camphor trade has be- 
come a Japanese government monopoly, and the cam- 
phor forests are not further destroyed without re- 
planting. 

Within the past five years, Japanese immigration 
to Formosa has been encouraged, and many thou- 
sands of industrious " Japs " have settled there. 
Scores upon scores of cleanly Japanese villages, ho- 



82 The Far East 

tels, and road-houses have been built. This immi- 
gration, now that order has been restored, will pro- 
ceed at an accelerated pace. 

There are natural resources in the island which are 
only just beginning to be exploited, coal and sulphur 
being the most valuable. 

With undeniable progress already achieved, it is un- 
questionable that Japan would have done much more 
in Formosa under more favourable circumstances than 
those that have obtained for ten years past. For it 
must be remembered that the disadvantages under 
which Japan has been labouring regarding Formosa 
and its development, since 1895, have been many and 
serious. It required five years out of the nine to thor- 
oughly re-establish order. The Japanese themselves 
were ignorant of the languages spoken in the island. 
But the main trouble was that Japan, on the one hand, 
is not as yet a country rich in capital, and that, on the 
other hand, she has been preparing strenuously for her 
coming struggle with Russia, bending all her ener- 
gies in that direction. 

Making due allowance for these untoward circum- 
stances, it may fairly be claimed that even as a col- 
oniser — wholly novel as the task was for her — the 
dashing little nation has made a fair success. 

There is thus no doubt that Japan has closed defi- 
nitely her accounts with the past, and has started out, 
for good and all, on the career of a modern power. 
She could not, if she would, retrace her steps. The 
whole basis of her new society rests on the achieve- 
ments and the conceptions of western minds. She 
has learned many things within an incredibly small 
space of time. She has been a willing pupil. None 
of her teachers has. been as readily heeded as the 



The New Japan 83 

American. She acknowledges her debt of gratitude 
to us frankly and sincerely. 

Is it thinkable that Japan will herself undo all for 
which she has striven so hard, and sink back into the 
morass of barbarism ? 

Yet that is precisely what people mean when they 
tell us of the " yellow peril." The very idea is ab- 
surd. You could no more get a savage who has once 
tasted the sweets of civilisation to go back to the wil- 
derness and starvation, than you could get the Jap to 
join hands with the Chinaman for the purpose of de- 
stroying our western civilisation. 

Or, if the " yellow-peril " argument should stop 
half-way, and should mean that there is danger of this 
new and powerful Japan allying itself with China or 
other Asian powers, merely for the sake of conquest 
or of expansion, it is none the less devoid of founda- 
tion. 

The case of Japan proves, once for all, that it is 
possible to make out of the Asiatic a being imbued 
with the spirit of modern civilisation. True, the 
"Jap " is an exceptional Asiatic, perhaps the most 
gifted of them. That China cannot exist much longer 
under her present system of government is admitted 
by all competent judges. The question is, how will 
she change? 

It is likely that Japan will become her most im- 
portant and effective teacher in the ways of western 
civilisation. This process could not be as rapid as in 
Japan's own case. There are several reasons for this. 
The chief one is that China is far more conservative 
in spirit than Japan. The Chinese intellect is keen 
and impressionable in several respects, but a complete 
turn-over in her social and economic organisation 



84 The Far East 

would require many years; political changes in China 
(especially so far as her own form of government is 
concerned) it would not be nearly so difficult to ef- 
fect. The dividing-up of China among the powers 
must be out of the question. That point has been 
touched upon above. 

But while it seems to be the " manifest destiny " of 
Japan to infuse the spirit of modernity into China, 
this teaching is bound to be of a purely pacific nature. 
Its tendency will be to develop China materially, to in- 
crease many times the powers of consumption and 
purchase of the average Chinaman. At present, the 
average annual earnings of the head of a family in 
the more prosperous provinces of China are $36 per 
year. To increase this to, say, $200, would mean the 
sextupling in value of China as a market for western 
wares. In no case would Japan exert herself to make 
out of China a great military power. To do so would 
run counter to Japan's own vital interests. 

If we have learned to admire anything in modern 
Japanese character, it is its sagacity, its eminently prac- 
tical bent, its singular capacity to choose between es- 
sentials and non-essentials of western civilisation. 
Japan knows precisely what is good for her. She 
will certainly not assist in, or herself inaugurate, the 
process of transforming intensely peaceful China into 
an aggressive military or economic power. 

Divided as she is from China by but a narrow arm 
of the sea, and having but one-ninth of the popula- 
tion of her huge neighbour, Japan knows as well as she 
knows anything, that it would be suicidal for her to 
raise up a strong military power along her whole west- 
ern flank. 

Let us, therefore, relegate this flimsy talk about a 



The New Japan 85 

" yellow peril " to the limbo of forgetfulness. It is 
idle to waste any more words on it. 

Russia started this " yellow-peril " idea. It has 
been, diplomatically, among the most serviceable of 
her stock in trade. She has manoeuvred with it most 
skilfully. Years ago, she understood how to inject 
this " yellow-peril " bacillus into the mind of the Ger- 
man emperor, and he forthwith drew, with the as- 
sistance of his former drawing master, Professor 
Knackfus, in Cassel, a flamboyant picture of alarm. 
He labelled it : " Nations of Europe ! Guard your most 
sacred treasures ! " And then he sent this symbolical 
drawing to all his crowned " colleagues," as he calls 
them — a copy of it even to the late President 
McKinley. 

Even in English-speaking countries this scarehead 
motto, " the yellow peril," found entrance and belief. 
It is one of those phrases which are most likely to 
strike terror to the breast of the gullible and im- 
pressionable. The power of mere phrase over the 
minds of the many is one of the most curious phe- 
nomena of our age, and no other instance of it is as 
curious as the virulence and longevity of this par- 
ticular phrase. 

Let us bury and be done with it. 



CHAPTER VIII 
AWAKENING CHINA 

When our own forbears were roaming dense 
forests, China was already a highly civilised country, 
in some respects more civilised than she is to-day. 

As long ago as the seventh century b. c, the face 
of Confucius was set towards the past. That great- 
est of Chinese sages, whose philosophy — entirely 
mundane and intensely practical — suits so well the 
natural temperament and mental bias of his country- 
men that, after a lapse of 2500 years, his teachings 
form still the code of ethics with the whole educated 
class, already complained of the decadence of China. 

Due to her geographical position, to the powerless- 
ness and lack of cohesion of her neighbours to the 
north and west, and to the vast desert regions and 
towering mountain chains that form a natural barrier 
in Tibet and Mongolia, China enjoyed for many cen- 
turies the blessings of isolation, at a time when in- 
numerable wars, rapine, and disorder ravaged the 
countries to the west. 

For a period of 1500 years and more this isolation 
was indeed a blessing to her, a blessing which enabled 
China to cultivate the arts of peace while the West 
was a prey to strife. Babylonian and Assyrian power 
sank to the dust. The world-empire of the Romans, 
during a thousand years, grew, matured, and then 
decayed. 

86 



Awakening China 87 

Persia rose to splendour and wide dominion, only 
to go down after a while. Greece evolved a har- 
monious civilisation, of part of which we are still the 
fortunate heirs. 

Finally, the Arab prophet appeared, and enthused 
Mohammedan hosts carried the Koran and the sword 
throughout the great region of which the Mediter- 
ranean and the Indian Ocean are the bearers of trade. 
Djinghis Khan and Tamerlane poured their resistless 
flood of Mongolian hordes, not over China, but 
through the immense Sarmatian plain which now 
forms the kernel of the huge Russian Empire. The 
Crusades ran their feverish course, revolutionising 
Occidental thought and culture. 

The Reformation came and moulded the creed and 
mind of nations. Modern civilisation all through the 
West flowered and produced fruit of unequalled 
savour. The wealth and power of the Occident at- 
tained dimensions never matched before. 

Columbus set out in his tiny caravels and discovered 
a New World. This New World again grew through 
the centuries, achieved independence and unheard-of 
prosperity. 

The dawn of the nineteenth century produced an- 
other world-conqueror, Napoleon, and he, too, at last 
went down, and his life was snuffed out like a candle 
on a mere speck of an island far to the south. 

By all these things China was not touched. She 
pursued the even tenor of her way. For many cen- 
turies China's knowledge of the outside world was 
confined to the savage aboriginal tribes on her fron- 
tiers. Why should she accept ideas from " bar- 
barians " ? China had all she wanted — a vast coun- 
try, densely populated, a civilisation for cycles su- 



88 The Far East 

perior to that of the rest of the world. She had in- 
vented gunpowder and the magnetic needle, the arts 
of writing, printing, and the making of paper, and be- 
come fairly proficient in the sciences of astronomy 
and navigation. She printed books from movable 
type, and had an extensive and highly developed lit- 
erature long before ours. The highest class of in- 
dustrial arts, such as the making and decoration of 
fine porcelains and silks, had found a secure home 
with her. In some cases she had preceded the West- 
ern world by a thousand years and more in essential 
points of civilisation. 

In a word, China was a highly developed nation, 
enjoying for many centuries model government and 
wise laws, when we — that is, our ancestors of long 
ago — were howling savages. 

But in the long run even blessed isolation means 
first stagnation and then decay. This is an unalter- 
able sociologic law. China could not escape it. 
Necessarily she was ignorant of the fact, because she 
had nothing and nobody to compare herself with. 
Throughout ages the thought had gradually crystal- 
lised in the Chinese mind that there was no country 
worth mention but China, and no civilisation at all 
commensurate with hers. Looking at the peculiar cir- 
cumstances under which she had been living for so 
long, it is indeed difficult to see how she could have 
escaped this fallacy. A highly gifted race they were 
from the outset, and that they have remained to this 
day, despite the canker of isolation. To what they 
would have developed if they had been in constant 
contact with western thought it is idle to conjecture. 

As it is, the peculiar conformation of the Chinese 
mind strikes us Occidentals, at first blush, as un- 



Awakening China 89 

canny, and yet, when we come to analyse it, it is no 
more than might be expected. We speak, and with 
some degree of justice, of the " insular bent of mind " 
of the Briton. The same stricture, though in a less 
degree, we ourselves were subject to until but a few 
years ago. And in both cases a certain amount of 
isolation, due to geographical position, was at the root 
of this peculiarity. But what is the case of England 
or the United States in comparison with that of 
China ? 

Thus, there was nothing extraordinary about it 
when the British embassy, headed by Lord Macart- 
ney, in 1792, was and is spoken of in Chinese annals 
as " barbarians bring tribute to China." That charm- 
ing book, Smith's " Chinese Characteristics," gives 
many amusing instances of the curious conceit of the 
people of China, a conceit, however, perfectly natural 
under the circumstances and eminently sincere. It is 
the necessary outgrowth of thousands of years of 
national isolation. To this hour the Chinaman looks 
upon us, quite honestly, as rank barbarians. He will 
get over that notion in time, and it is part of our task 
to hasten the process. 

Nevertheless, since 1895 China is awake. True, 
she is still rubbing her eyes and wondering what it all 
means. But the war with Japan, in 1894, served as 
the first entering wedge into the thick hide of Chinese 
prejudice. Her previous two encounters with Euro- 
pean powers, — the " Opium War " of 1842 and the 
Anglo-French attack upon her in 1861, culminating 
in the sack of Peking and the spoliation of the Sum- 
mer Palace, — made no deep impression on the Chinese 
people. The events which followed the Boxer up- 
rising, a couple of years ago, helped somewhat to 



9<d The Far East 

drive this wedge home. China is now aware of her 
military impotency; also, to some extent, of her eco- 
nomic inferiority. Of her social superiority, how- 
ever, she is as yet quite firmly convinced. Talk on 
that topic with any intelligent and outspoken China- 
man, and he will tell you so. 

One thing is certain. The Chinaman has already 
come not only to recognise, but to adopt — in some 
features at least — our superior material civilisation. 
To the question: " Does it pay?" he has made an- 
swer by an emphatic " Yes." He cares nothing as 
yet for western literature and art, social and political 
ideals, and least of all for western religion. But that 
will come in time. 

China is often referred to as a " dying nation," as 
suffering " dissolution " or " vivisection." The proc- 
ess of carving a living body into convenient fragments 
is spoken of lightly, and that the day of dismember- 
ment is close at hand is firmly believed by many, even 
by some who ought to be more or less competent 
judges. Such dismemberment, as was pointed out in 
a previous chapter, would be diametrically opposed to 
American interests, and we must do everything that 
is humanly possible to hinder it. 

We may not like the Chinaman of to-day, exhibit- 
ing, as he does, a number of characteristics that are 
more or less distasteful to our nicer western percep- 
tions. But that is not the gauge to be applied in such 
a case. The question rather is, what are the qualities 
fitting the Chinaman for the present and future 
struggle for existence? And viewing the problem 
from that angle, we must admit that the slant-eyed 
Mongolian is most powerfully equipped. Let us 
mention just a few of his racial traits, 



Awakening China 91 

Sticking out most prominently we find : a physical 
endurance most wonderful in such an ancient race ; 
a bodily organisation enabling him to live with im- 
punity anywhere on the globe, in the tropics as in the 
arctic zone. We find enormous powers of propaga- 
tion, powers which, if unchecked and in their effects 
undiminished by such an entire disregard of hygiene 
as he lives under at present, would quickly double and 
treble the present population of his country. We find 
an entire absence of that nervous exhaustion with 
which the whole Occident is more or less tainted. In 
" Chinese Characteristics " we are told by an eye-wit- 
ness the story of a Chinaman losing both legs in an 
explosion, lying for hours untended in the broiling 
sun, at last being taken to a hospital, where the double 
amputation is performed on him without the aid of 
anaesthetics, the patient contentedly smoking his pipe 
an hour later, and three weeks after hobbling just as 
contentedly about on the streets. We are told of a 
common sight in Chinese towns : men, women, and 
children sleeping profoundly and peacefully in the 
glare of the sun, falling asleep at a moment's notice. 
Apparently they have no nerves at all. 

The vitality of the Chinese stock is simply amaz- 
ing. The abstemiousness and utter sobriety of their 
mode of living; their imperviousness to disease and 
hardship; their ability to labour hard and long, with- 
out loss of power, on a diet of rice and dried fish, 
w r ashed down with weak tea; their hard-grained com- 
mon sense; their persistent economy and their quick- 
ness of perception ; their unfailing keenness in seiz- 
ing and utilising opportunities for their material ad- 
vancement — all these are leading traits in the average 
men of the race. 



92 The Far East 

Imagine such a people fully awake. Imagine them 
using, with their natural shrewdness, the superior ad- 
vantages of our higher material civilisation. Imagine 
them under a well-ordered government once more. 
Imagine them freed from the manifold hindrances, 
individual and collective, from which they have suf- 
fered for many centuries. Lastly, imagine them, if 
your fancy runs that way, as a systematically trained 
military power. 

Truly, the Chinaman is not a negligible quantity. 

But as to the utter improbability of China ever be- 
coming a great military power, a word will be said 
elsewhere. For the moment we will confine our pic- 
ture to the other elements mentioned. 

At the close of the Boxer troubles a census was 
taken of the whole of China by the central govern- 
ment, the purpose being to determine the apportion- 
ment of the indemnity to be paid the allied powers. 
This census is therefore not to be suspected of in- 
flation, and is presumably correct. We find the 
following figures : 

China proper (square miles), 1,532,420; Man- 
churia, 363,610; Mongolia, 1,367,300; Tibet, 463,- 
200; Chinese Turkestan, 550,340. And the popula- 
tion we find, quoting the figures in the above order : 
407,337>3°5; 8,500,000; 2,580,000; 6,430,000; 1,- 
200,000. This gives a territory, all told, of 4,277,170 
square miles, and a population of 426,047,325. 

It will be noted, however, that of this immense 
territory — just about one-half of the whole of Euro- 
pean and Asiatic Russia — China proper forms only 
one-third, being but slightly larger than the Missis- 
sippi Valley; furthermore, that this one-third contains 
more than 95 per cent, of the population. 



Awakening China 



93 



Again, the density of population and the natural 
resources of even the 18 provinces, constituting to- 
gether the core of the whole empire, differ extremely : 



PROVINCES 


AREA 
ENG. SQ. MILES 


POPULATION 


POPULATION 
PER SQ. MILE 


ChiHli . . . 


II5,800 


20,937,000 


172 


Shan Tung . 




55,970 


38,247,900 


683 


Shan Si . . 




81,830 


12,200,456 


149 


Ho Nan . 




67,940 


35,316,800 


520 


Kiang Su . 




38,600 


13,980,235 


362 


Ngan Hwei 




54,8lO 


23,670,314 


432 


Kiang Si . 




69,480 


26,532,125 


382 


Cheh Kiang 




36,670 


11,580,692 


3l6 


Fu Kien . 




46,320 


22,876,540 


494 


Hu Peh . 




7I,4IO 


35,280,685 


492 


HuNan . 




83,380 


22,169,673 


266 


Shen Si . 




75,270 


8,450,182 


in 


Kan Su . 




125,450 


10,385,376 


82 


Szech Wan 




218,450 


68,724,890 


314 


Kwang Tun£ 


r 


99,970 


31,865,251 


319 


Kwang Si 




77,200 


5,142,330 


67 


Kwei Chau 




67,160 


7,650,282 


114 


Yuen Nan 




146,680 


12,324,574 


84 


Total 




1,532,420 


407,253,029 


266 



We see, then, that the density of population varies 
very greatly. The most populous of all the provinces, 
Shan Tung, where there are 683 inhabitants to the 
square mile, with a total population of over 38,000,- 
000, is the one which Germany has chosen for her 
special field of exploitation. From that figure the 
population per square mile drops, in varying degree, 
down to almost one-tenth, namely, 82 per square mile, 
in Kan Su, and to less than one-tenth, namely, 67 per 
square mile, in the province of Kwang Si. 

It is a curious coincidence that nearly all of the 
more thinly peopled provinces of China, such as 



94 The Far East 

Shan Si, Shen Si, Kan Su, and Kwang Si, are pre- 
cisely those which have the largest and most valuable 
natural resources, but resources which up to now have 
been wholly unexploited. 

The outlying territories under Chinese sway, though 
enormous in extent and, in part, possessing great 
natural sources of wealth, are not only loosely con- 
nected with the empire proper, inhabited by races dif- 
fering more or less from the Chinese themselves, but 
are also the most sparsely settled and poorly culti- 
vated. This is a significant fact which will play a 
great figure hereafter in the future development of 
the empire. 

Indeed, Providence seems to have reserved these 
vast territories for the coming expansion of the Chi- 
nese race, placing at their very door and under their 
suzerainty thinly populated lands which will suffice 
for centuries to come for the awakening ambition and 
the natural increase of the 400,000,000 of China 
proper. 

The territorial losses with which China has met, 
directly and indirectly, have not been considerable 
until the present. The loss of Manchuria, if it should 
come to pass, would far outweigh all the others that 
have preceded it. True, Russia, in the guise of a 
frontier regulation, did take considerable slices of 
China before, those being in the region watered by the 
Amoor, Ussuri, and Shilka rivers. But even the dis- 
tricts thus alienated by Russia were neither intrin- 
sically nor territorially to be compared in importance 
with Manchuria. 

The island of Formosa was ceded to Japan, in ac- 
cordance with the treaty of peace, ratified and ex- 
changed at Che Foo, May 8, 1895, and the transfer 



Awakening China 



95 




96 The Far East 

effected on June 2 of the same year. This island con- 
tains but 13,000 square miles. 

In November, 1897, Germany seized the port of 
Kiao Chao, situated on the coast of Shan Tung. In 
January, 1898, the Kaiser obtained from China a 
ninety-nine years' lease of the town, harbour, and dis- 
trict. This colony, territorially small as it is, is of 
vast importance to Germany's boundless ambitions 
in Far Asia. It affords her, as Count Buelow, the 
imperial chancellor, put it in a speech in the Reichs- 
tag, " a powerful lever and a base of operations in 
China — a share of the sunlight." This will be shown 
further on. 

By agreement with the Chinese government, Russia, 
on March 2.7, 1898, leased, for twenty-five years, Port 
Arthur, at the extreme south end of Manchuria. 
Russia before this had also acquired, on similar terms, 
Ta Lien Wan, since renamed Dalny. In 1900, in 
consequence of the Boxer uprising, Russia occupied 
Manchuria, and her failure to comply with her re- 
peated pledges of evacuation has led, as the world 
knows, to the present war. 

For such a period as Russia may hold Port Arthur, 
Great Britain is, by agreement with China, April 2, 
1898, to hold Wei Hai Wei, also situated on the coast 
of the province of Shan Tung. For defensive pur- 
poses Great Britain has, in addition to her older Chi- 
nese possession, the island of Hong Kong, obtained 
a ninety-nine years' lease of a district called Kau 
Lung, on the mainland opposite. 

To compensate her for these various advantages 
given to Russia, Britain, and Germany, France ob- 
tained, in April, 1898, from China a ninety-nine years' 
lease of the bay of Kwang Chau Wan, opposite the 



Awakening China 97 

island of Hai Nan. In November, 1899, China 
further conceded to France possession of the two 
islands commanding the entrance of the above-named 
bay, and this new territory has been placed under the 
authority of the governor-general of French Indo- 
China. 

Tien Tsin, an important trade emporium in North- 
ern China, which had been occupied by the allied 
powers during the Boxer troubles, was restored to 
China in 1902, and Shanghai was likewise restored 
to her in January, 1903. 

All these losses of Chinese territory, outright or 
cloaked in order to " save the face " of the imperial 
government in Peking, do not amount, however, to 
more than a tiny fragment of China as a whole. So 
far as actual loss of sovereignty is concerned, China 
is still practically intact. 

And now look at some of the results of the — as 
yet — partial awakening of China. 

Railroads : 870 miles in operation in China proper ; 
675 miles running in the French, English, German, 
and Portuguese colonies, independent of the two Man- 
churian lines built by the Russians, with altogether 
a mileage of about 3000; 2270 miles are now being 
built in China proper, and 3577 miles are projected; 
Russia means to build a railroad through Mongolia. 

China ought to become a paradise of railroads, for 
her highways are the worst on earth. The rivers, 
supplemented by the great canals, — now in a bad state 
of repairs, — are to-day her chief arteries of trade, 
though of course the Chinese coastwise trade, by junk 
or steamer, is also very large. Her rivers, above all 
the famed Yang Tse, afford cheap and easy transpor- 
tation, as far as it goes. But, of course, overland 



98 The Far East 

traffic is in a very backward state, so costly and cum- 
brous as to forbid transportation of goods for any 
great distance. Goods are carried on the backs of 
coolies, ponies, mules, and dromedaries, 50,000 of the 
latter serving even to-day as the means of conveyance 
for tea across the Mongolian desert to Russia. 

In natural resources China has only one equal — our 
own country. Colquhoun says : " The mineral wealth 
of China is, perhaps, the greatest of any country on 
the world's surface, and is yet hardly touched." 

Professor von Richthofen (brother of Germany's 
secretary of foreign affairs, and one of the greatest of 
living geographers), after extensive travels through- 
out the interior of China, during which he visited and 
thoroughly examined Chinese conditions, especially 
her natural resources, makes the same statement, and 
in his book on the subject gives definite information. 

About seven years ago an expert commission was 
sent out to China by the German government, and, 
after a very thorough examination of all the facts, 
reached similar conclusions. 

The mineral wealth of China is indeed enormous. 
Coal exists in layers as extensive as those of this coun- 
try, occurring in abundance everywhere save in one 
out of the eighteen provinces of China proper. In 
iron ores the facts are similar. The deposits of coal 
and iron in the provinces of Shen Si and Shan Si are 
believed to be the most valuable in the world. They 
alone cover an area of 27,500 square miles. They 
contain enough anthracite coal of the best quality to 
supply the world at the present rate of consumption 
for 2000 years. England and France will penetrate 
this region with a railway, and have secured a con- 
cession to work this vast wealth for sixty years. The 



Awakening China 99 

province of Szech Wan is of similar richness and this 
province is the largest. 

Sir Thomas Jackson, manager-in-chief of the Hong 
Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, says that 
China is on the eve of a commercial development that 
in its magnitude could not be estimated. All that is 
required, he maintains, to bring enormous prosperity 
to China is to open it up by means of railways and 
waterways. 

China is essentially an agricultural country — that 
is, as yet. The land is all freehold, held by families 
on the payment of an annual tax. Lands and houses 
are registered. Farm animals are oxen and buffaloes. 
The implements are primitive. Irrigation is very 
common. Horticulture is a favourite pursuit, and 
fruit trees are grown in great variety. The whole of 
China's agriculture is very intensive. 

Wheat, barley, maize, millet, and other cereals, also 
pease and beans, are cultivated in the north, while 
sugar, indigo, and cotton are grown in the southern 
provinces. Opium has become a crop of increasing 
importance. 

Tea is cultivated exclusively in the west and south, 
in Fu Kien, Hu Peh, Hu Nan, Kiang Si, Cheh Kiang, 
Ngan Hwei, Kwang Tung, and Szech Wan. China 
formerly had a practical monopoly in tea up to not 
many years ago. But she has allowed her tea exports 
to decline, being unable to meet the keen competition 
of British India and Ceylon, Japan, etc., although it 
is undeniable that even to-day she produces the teas 
of finest flavour and daintiest taste. 

The mulberry tree grows everywhere, but the best 
and the most silk comes from Kwang Tung, Szech 
Wan, Cheh Kiang, and Kiang Su. 



LofC. 



ioo The Far East 

An important feature in new Chinese industries is 
the erection of cotton mills in Shanghai, and of fila- 
tures for winding silk from cocoons in Shanghai, Can- 
ton, and elsewhere. In Shanghai alone are twenty-six 
filatures, with 8500 basins, which can reel off 12,000 
piculs of silk per year. Two native mills were started 
in 1890; in 1901 there were 14 cotton-spinning mills 
in China with about 460,000 spindles, turning out 
some 60,000,000 pounds annually. This number since 
has increased about 50 per cent. 

Flour and rice mills are beginning to supersede in 
large centres native methods of treating wheat and 
rice. Hang Yang, near Han Kow, has large Chinese 
iron works, supplied from ore mines at Ta Yeh, sixty 
miles distant. An impetus was given to the making 
of firearms by the prohibition of their importation, as 
provided for in the treaty of September 7, 1901. 

In Shan Tung, the coal fields of Wei Hsien and 
Po Shan are most productive. Besides those men- 
tioned before, immense coal fields, both anthracite and 
bituminous, were recently discovered in the south- 
eastern districts of Hu Nan, their area being about 
21,700 square miles. In Manchuria, too, iron and 
coal are both found in plenty. Copper is plentiful in 
Yuen Nan, and near ihe city of Meng Tse are found 
large mines of tin, lead, and silver. 

The foreign commerce of China was briefly referred 
to. Direct imports and exports now range between 
$320,000,000 and $360,000,000. The Boxer rising 
had, of course, a very unfavourable influence on this 
foreign trade, but in 1902 it began to rise once more. 
For that year the total value of China's direct imports 
was $195,590,575, an increase of 10 per cent. In 
cotton products the increase in imports was partial- 



Awakening China 101 

larly pronounced, the whole amount being consider- 
ably over $80,000,000. 

Owing to the decentralisation that in China has 
assumed extraordinary proportions, the revenues of 
the empire as a whole are singularly inadequate — in 
fact, in nowise commensurate with the size and popu- 
lousness of the country. Besides, the data obtainable 
are, at best, estimates approximating the truth. No 
general statement of the revenues of China is ever 
made public officially. Such estimates as are formed 
by foreigners are founded on the financial reports of 
the various provincial governors, published annually 
in the Peking Gazette. 

Except foreign, maritime, and a few native cus- 
toms, the revenue is collected by provincial agents. 
The board of revenue at Peking issues annually to 
each governor of a province a statement of the amount 
required from his province for the following year, and 
when to this amount is added the sum necessary for 
local administration, civil and military, the sum to be 
provided by each collector is ascertained. 

The amount actually levied, however, greatly ex- 
ceeds this, and the surplus, which may amount to 50 
or 70 per cent, of the total, disappears in the form 
of costs or presents and bribes to official superiors, or 
else it remains in the hands of the collectors them- 
selves. 

From a statement published not long ago by Sir 
Robert Hart, and obtained from the records of the 
Hu Pu (board of revenue), the latest estimate of the 
revenue and expenditure of the central government 
of China amounts to : Revenue, 88,200,000 haikwan 
taels, whereof the land tax, with 26,500,000, forms 
the largest item, while the li kin (internal duty), with 



102 The Far East 

16,000,000, and the general cargo duty, with 17,000,- 
000, are next in importance; the salt duty, with 13,- 
500,000, and the foreign opium duty, with 5,000,000, 
are likewise large. 

Expenditure : The military and naval appropria- 
tions, with 35,000,000 haikwan taels, form the larg- 
est item; next to that the provincial, and the interest 
on loans. 

To meet the expenditure on interest and redemption 
of the large debt of 1901, the government has required 
viceroys and governors of provinces to increase their 
annual remittances by 18,700,000 haikwan taels during 
the period 1902-10. 

The land tax varies enormously in different prov- 
inces — from 20 or 25 cents to $1.55 and more per 
acre. The rate of incidence is theoretically fixed, 
but under other names additional taxes are imposed 
on land. Salt is a government monopoly; producers 
must sell to the government agents, who resell to mer- 
chants provided with " salt warrants " at a price to 
cover the duty. 

The li kin was a provincial tax imposed on mer- 
chandise in transportation, payable at appointed bar- 
riers. This mode of raising revenue was, however, 
abolished in September, 1902, in answer to the re- 
monstrances of the western powers, and the deficiency 
thus created is now covered by a surtax on foreign 
imports. The Chinese government can levy taxes on 
native articles of consumption at the place of consump- 
tion itself. 

The foreign debt of China amounts now to $598,- 
775,000. Of this, $320,000,000 was contracted to 
pay the indemnity to the allied powers growing out 
of the Boxer troubles in 1900 and 1901. 



Awakening China 103 

This is a very large sum for a country financially 
and economically undeveloped, and the interest charge 
on it, averaging between 5 and 6 per cent., forms a 
heavy burden for China. The indemnity for the 
Boxer injuries constitutes a gold debt payable in 
thirty-nine instalments, due January 1 of each year 
up to 1 94 1. Interest at 4 per cent, and amounting to 
18,829,500 haikwan taels per annum, is payable half- 
yearly. Securities for the debt are the imperial 
maritime customs otherwise unappropriated, and 
other sources of revenue. The proceeds thus assigned 
are paid monthly to a commission in Shanghai. The 
annual charge on all debts secured on customs now 
amounts to about $28,850,000. 

The imperial Chinese post office was opened in T897, 
and China has now joined the postal union of the 
world. Clocks and watches are seen everywhere on 
the coast and for some distance in the interior, espe- 
cially in the provinces lying along the mighty Yang 
Tse. This signifies that time is beginning to be of 
some worth in China. 

It takes about seven pounds of old brass " cash," 
formerly the universal coin in China, to make a dollar. 
This is now gradually giving place to silver coin, indi- 
cating larger transactions and a slow rise in the 
standard of living. This standard is as yet painfully 
low. The average earnings of a family of the work- 
ing class in China are $3 per month. Low, indeed, 
you will say, but keep in mind that the average earn- 
ings of the Russian peasant (and that means the Rus- 
sian people, for the peasant forms 95 per cent, of the 
total Russian population) are even lower, barely 
$32 per year. And whereas food and raiment in 
China are very low in price, and the climate is much 



104 The Far East 

milder, prices for these necessaries of life are 50 per 
cent, higher in Russia. 

Another point : the Chinaman, when he attains 
wealth or even moderate affluence, knows how to live, 
and he fully appreciates good things. Foreign ob- 
servers have remarked this in Shanghai and other 
ports with a rich Chinese merchant class. The fact 
is still more noticeable in cities outside China where 
the Chinese are economically strong. In Singapore, 
for instance, the Chinese merchant displays the great- 
est luxury; the same is true, in slighter measure, in 
Hong Kong and in the large cities of Java, such as 
Batavia and Soerabaya. 

From a recent detailed table of imports in China a 
few significant facts in this connection may be gleaned. 
This table shows, among other things, that the con- 
sumption of flour grew, since 1877, from nothing to 
185,892,600 pounds; matches (gross boxes), from 
559,117 to 11,254,000; iron and manufactures of 
iron, from 61,672,580 to 285,130,700 pounds; petro- 
leum, American, from nothing to 56,213,000 gallons; 
petroleum, Russian, from nothing to 42,924,000 gal- 
lons. 

Still more telling, though in themselves not very 
high, are a few figures taken from a tabulated state- 
ment of Chinese imports from the United States. 
They show that the import of American books and 
maps from nothing has grown to $15,836 in 1898 
carriages, cars, etc., from $413, in 1889, to $56,547 
scientific instruments, etc., from $1869 to $31,119 
nails, $32 to $54,172; iron and steel, from $67,214 
to $464,521; printing paper, from nothing to $386,- 
376; canned meats, from $50,180 to $300,970; butter, 
from $3547 to $21,555; salt, from $3000 to $150,000; 



Awakening China 105 

lumber, from $26,724 to $120,251 ; wood, and manu- 
factures of wood, from $52,994 to $167,881. 

Within nine years such a rise in the import of cer- 
tain American manufactures! The above items and 
facts are prophetic indeed of changes infinitely greater 
yet to come. 

There is now being forced upon China a demonstra- 
tion of the superiority of mechanical power over mus- 
cular power. Thus far, the Chinese people and gov- 
ernment have reluctantly permitted us to demonstrate 
this fact by granting, bit after bit, concessions to Occi- 
dentals for the erection of manufacturing works, rail- 
roads, telegraph and telephone lines, the exploitation 
of mines, and so forth. Once, however, this demon- 
stration will have been complete, and its full force 
entered the Chinese mind, China herself will be eager 
to encourage the introduction of our industrial civilisa- 
tion. Intelligent Chinese have begun to see that the 
natural sciences are at the foundation of our material 
civilisation. Accordingly, they are advocating their 
study. 

New schools for western learning have been estab- 
lished in Canton, Han Kow, Hang Chow, I Chang, 
Woo Chang, and a half-dozen other cities. A million- 
aire Chinese merchant with a portion of his wealth has 
recently founded in Shanghai an institute for boys 
modelled after such American institutions as the Pratt 
of Brooklyn and the Drexel of Philadelphia. 

In China, as in all Asiatic countries, the education 
of women is a great innovation, but a Chinese ladies' 
school, where western learning is to be taught, has 
been started by voluntary subscriptions from the well- 
to-do Chinese classes in Shanghai. 

An imperial edict was issued several years ago, put- 



106 The Far East 

ting western learning on a par with Chinese literature 
as a condition of obtaining degrees. Since the officials 
of the empire are all drawn from the literary class, 
the change of ideas of the Chinese students necessarily 
means the transformation of the Chinese intellect and 
government system; not, perhaps, in this generation, 
but surely in the next. 

Native newspapers are springing up, not alone in 
Shanghai, where some five are already appearing, but 
in a number of other treaty ports, and, as recently re- 
ported, in Han Kow as well. 

Such various agencies set in motion cannot fail to 
deeply modify the Chinese mind within the very near 
future. 

The nineteenth century has been crowded with mar- 
vels, of which the resurrection of Japan was the great- 
est. A short while ago that country was wrapped like 
a mummy, bound hand and foot to the past. She is 
now tingling with life in every nerve. Less than fifty 
years ago Japan was more intensely exclusive than 
China. For a native who attempted to leave the coun- 
try, and for a foreigner who attempted to enter it, the 
penalty was death. No human being could then fore- 
see that at the close of the century Japan would have 
been received into the sisterhood of nations as an 
equal. 

Japan will probably be China's most effective and 
congenial teacher. That China is willing to have this 
so, there is plenty of evidence, quite irrespective of her 
attitude in this present war. China several years ago 
began to place an annual contingent of 150 selected 
students in the care of the Tokio government, to be 
educated in Japanese universities. The result was so 
satisfactory that China has adhered to this practice, 



Awakening China 107 

increasing the number of such students. Even at this 
writing, while Japan is waging war, there are a couple 
of hundred of Chinese students at her seats of learn- 
ing, diligently garnering knowledge. At the new 
university in Peking, Japanese professors hold several 
important chairs. At the new Chinese shipyards, 
Japanese constructors and engineers are employed by 
preference. Though the military reorganisation of 
China has been, and still is, mainly in the hands of 
European instructors, during the last two years a num- 
ber of Japanese have been taken into the service of 
several of the most progressive Chinese provincial gov- 
ernors. Yuan Shi Kai, the clearest head in the China 
of to-day, was one of these. 

And this is the place to say a word about this much- 
heralded " military organisation " of China. 

The world knows how complete was the breakdown 
of China's military organisation during the war with 
Japan, in 1894-95. True, for a number of years pre- 
ceding, the governors of various Chinese provinces had 
had in their employ foreign military instructors, mostly 
German. It is well to emphasise the fact that these 
governors, though owing their power to appointment 
by the central government in Peking, are, during their 
term of office, practically monarchs, independent rulers 
over territories some of which are treble the size of 
England and holding populations of from 30,000,000 
to 70,000,000. Thus, small elite corps had been 
formed, well drilled, and equipped with arms of the 
latest make. But here comes into play one of the most 
curious features of Chinese political life. There was, 
up to that war with Japan, no cohesion whatever be- 
tween the different provinces. Each of them practi- 
cally formed a political and administrative entity of 



108 The Far East 

its own, and the governor of any one of them never 
dreamt of bothering his head about what might occur 
in the adjoining province. 

Thus it came about that the Japs in that war had 
only to do with the Chinese troops garrisoned in, and 
owing allegiance to, those maritime provinces of China 
which they had invaded. The well-organised Chinese 
troops, the product of foreign instructors, they had 
never to face. But these well-equipped and well- 
drilled bodies of Chinese troops were at that time but 
a tiny fragment of the entire so-called Chinese army, 
not even one per cent. The immense remainder was 
made up — as it is made up to-day, though in less per- 
centage — of the " bannermen " of various classes. And 
these " bannermen," when compared with western 
standards, could be called nothing but ill-organised, 
worse-disciplined, plundering ruffians, a terror to their 
countrymen and a gibe to their enemies. They were 
armed and clad in mediaeval fashion, with swords, 
spears, lances, and bow and arrow. They were offi- 
cered and commanded by men who owed their appoint- 
ments to money, personal influence, or both. These 
military mandarins, as they were called, were held in 
as general contempt as the men they led. 

The total number of these " bannermen " was then 
computed at about 1,100,000, scattered over the broad 
lands of China, without the possibility (in the absence 
of railroads or highways) of ever concentrating them. 
They served, in fact, more in the capacity of military 
hangers-on of the various governors and as a species 
of internal police than for anything else. And that, 
let us repeat it, was the army of China. 

It is no wonder that with such an archaic system 
China was at that time practically powerless against 



Awakening China 109 

any invader, even if that invader had been much less 
alert and much less capable than was the Japanese. 

It must be borne in mind that China has never been 
an aggressive power, never a conquering nation. The 
present dynasty, the Manchus, are a speaking proof of 
the fact that China was a weak nation, even for de- 
fence, centuries ere this. And yet her military system 
was built up on the theory of defence, not of aggres- 
sion. 

The intensely pacific character of the people is, how- 
ever, the main reason which has kept China from being 
a conquering race. This pacific character is as strongly 
inherent in the Chinamen of to-day as it ever was. 
The Chinese word for soldier is significant in this 
respect; it means, literally: Man-who-plays-for-his- 
head. Imagine a training in that direction for some 
thousands of years — what should we be ? The China- 
man is not, like the Jap, warlike and fond of glory. 
If China to-day should suddenly make up her mind 
to become a warlike nation, even supposing she had the 
inherent capacity, it would take her centuries to wean 
herself from that ancient and traditional bent of mind. 
No matter who hereafter will be China's military 
teacher, whether Japan, Europe, or this country, there 
is no danger of her becoming a strong military power. 
In a nation holding in utter contempt the soldier, the 
very defender of the soil, there is not much good 
material out of which to fashion a strong army. And 
when to this fact is added the just as important one of 
the complete lack of cohesion among the various prov- 
inces, the deep-seated selfishness of the Chinaman as 
an individual, the absence even of such a word as 
" patriotism," it will be seen that the Occident has no 
good grounds to fear the " yellow peril." 



no The Far East 

We may, therefore, take the recent information with 
perfect composure which tells of the latest attempts 
made by China to create something like a modern 
army. 

Sir Robert Hart, inspector-general of Chinese cus- 
toms, at the behest of the imperial government, is now 
undertaking the task of reforming the system of rais- 
ing revenues. It is his intention to increase these 
revenues to 400,000,000 taels (about $270,000,000) 
by a uniform levy of 65 cents an acre on cultivated 
land. 

This is to provide a standing army and reserves of 
half a million men; also an adequate fleet and a reor- 
ganised civil service, with a salary list of 160,000,000 
taels. The scheme assumes that the Chinese official 
class would be honest if well paid, but the officials 
themselves express doubts. 

But even if a standing army of half a million, well- 
disciplined and efficient, should be created by this 
means, this would put China not even on a par with 
Japan, though the population of the latter is only about 
one-ninth as large. A Chinese army of half a million, 
in order to hold so vast and populous a country, would 
have its hands full indeed, even if we are rash enough 
to suppose that able Chinese generals will grow up 
within a day. 

Yuan Shi Kai, recently appointed viceroy of Chi 
Hli (the province holding the capital, Peking), has 
followed in the footsteps of the late Li Hung Chang 
in making serious efforts to form the nucleus of an 
efficient Chinese army. The body of troops now under 
his command, and of which the Russians are so appre- 
hensive, may be said to be the flower of China's mili- 
tary forces. These troops, officered largely by Jap- 



Awakening China 1 1 1 

anese, with a sprinkling of former European officers, 
are well-organised, and the discipline enforced among 
them shows that with proper teaching the individual 
Chinaman — that is, the one hailing from certain 
northern provinces — may be turned into quite a re- 
spectable soldier. But even this Chinese elite corps 
has yet to give proofs of being able to face, man for 
man, a western foe. 

In any event, it is a fact, as well established as any, 
that there is no immediate prospect of China becoming 
a military power. Under the most favourable circum- 
stances it would require several generations to effect 
such a miracle. 

But for Americans this whole question is really an 
academic one. It concerns us much nearer to learn 
what in the future as well as in the present are our 
commercial chances with China. 

What will be the effect of China's awakening upon 
the United States? 



CHAPTER IX 
WHAT CHINA MEANS FOR THIS NATION 

Suppose the Chinese were as much westernised as 
are the Japanese, what would China's foreign com- 
merce be ? The population of China is about ten times 
as great as that of Japan, and between the resources of 
the two countries there is no comparison, as we have 
seen. Lord Beresford, considered an authority, says : 
" Japan is a country without a tittle of the natural re- 
sources of China." 

And yet the foreign trade of Japan is two-thirds that 
of China. The inference must be that if China were 
as far advanced as Japan, her commerce would be at 
least as much greater as is her population. That is, 
her foreign trade would reach the enormous sum of 
$3,500,000,000. 

If another America, peopled with 75,000,000 like 
ourselves, should rise out of the Pacific Ocean, what 
a tremendous impetus it would give to the world's in- 
dustries. To raise the standard of living in China to 
the average standard in the United States would be 
equivalent to the creation of five Americas. 

Raise the Chinese standard of living only 50 per 
cent, and, commercially speaking, it would add 200,- 
000,000 to the world's population. 

We see, then, what the awakening of China means 
to American commerce. Our share of the Chinese 
trade is next to that of Great Britain, and rapidly in- 



What China Means for This Nation 1 1 3 

creasing. Our geographical position and our other un- 
deniable advantages should give us the first place in 
China's foreign trade. 

Wu Ting Fang, late Chinese minister to the United 
States, at a farewell dinner given him by the American 
Asiatic Association, said : " We all know that China 
is one of the greatest markets of the world, with a pop- 
ulation of over 400,000,000 that must be fed and 
clothed. . . . She wants your wheat, your cotton, 
your iron and steel, and your manufactured articles. 
. . . She wants steel rails, electrical machines, and one 
hundred other things that she cannot get at home, and 
must get abroad. It is a fine field for American in- 
dustry to fill these wants. ... If you do not come up 
to your own expectations and meet this opportunity, it 
is your own fault." 

The new necessity of finding additional foreign 
markets, pointed out in a preceding chapter, together 
with the prospect of doors more or less closed against 
us in continental Europe, or of being hampered by a 
high tariff, lays strong emphasis on the value of 
China's " open door " and the desirability of keeping 
it open. 

When we remember that our new necessities are 
precisely complementary to China's new needs, it is 
not difficult to see a strong meaning in the fact that 
we have become an Asiatic power, close to the Yellow 
Sea. 

This nation has so far paid little attention to China, 
an immeasurable and nearby market. Both the Rus- 
sians and the Germans have carefully conceived 
theories of their own as to Chinese trade and Oriental 
character. We have applied so far the philosophy of 
indifference. What American trade there is to-day in 



H4 The Far East 

the Orient is the result of superior geographic posi- 
tion, of our matchless resources, of the excellence of 
our goods, and of the tireless efforts of a mere handful 
of enterprising American merchants. 

It is true, our trade is growing with China and the 
whole of the Far East ; it is even growing rapidly. 
But this growth is far slower than it ought to be, 
taking into consideration our advantages. 

We are only about 5000 miles away from that 
market, and our competitors, England and Germany 
particularly, are distant from it 10,000 to 12,000 
miles. Our natural resources almost defy description, 
while those of our rivals are in comparison limited and 
meagre. 

Germany is the most striking case in point. When 
placed side by side with ours, her resources are not 
ample. She is far away from this Far Asian market. 
Her men do not equal ours in inventiveness, bold 
spirit of conception and execution, and in capital. And 
yet, by first patiently evolving a system of dealing with 
China and then consistently adhering to it, Germany 
has achieved within the space of a few years a pre- 
eminent commercial position in the Far East. 

Attention has been called to some of the strong 
traits in the Chinese character. But there are others 
just as strong which we, as a nation, have so far 
ignored in our dealings with them. Profound indi- 
vidual selfishness is one of them. Singly, this makes 
the Chinaman a ruthless and formidable competitor 
in the commercial race. Collectively, it makes the 
Chinese a weak nation. Like all Orientals, the China- 
man shows a singular respect for visible, tangible 
power and force. This brings it about that that 
nation which, like Russia, impresses the Chinaman 



What China Means for This Nation 1 1 5 

through his senses, by a ceaseless display of military 
and naval strength, is held by him in great esteem. 
Mere patting on the back will not accomplish much 
with the average Chinaman. As Li Hung Chang 
once put it in conversation with an American : " If 
you Americans expect to get a large share of Chinese 
trade, you cannot get it by talk; you have got to go 
after it." And this wily old man knew his country- 
men thoroughly. Furthermore, he was a typical 
Chinaman, with all the failings as well as the strong 
points of his race. Though he hated the Russians 
bitterly, he accepted huge bribes from them, and fur- 
thered their schemes rather than those of their more 
scrupulous competitors. 

It is quite true that the Chinaman looks upon all 
Westerners as barbarians, but it would be a mistake to 
suppose that he does not draw distinctions. He 
keenly discerns differences of method and character, 
as shown by the various groups of these " barbarians." 

As a nation, China is lethargic; as an individual, 
the Chinaman is enterprising and pushing, resourceful, 
patient, and quick. 

China will never advance merely by her own will- 
power. She must be taken in hand, and she will re- 
spect that teacher the most that will deal with her 
firmly, though kindly. 

We ought to have at least 50 per cent, of China's 
foreign trade. We do have actually, counting in our 
indirect trade with her (through Hong Kong and 
via London and Liverpool), something like 17 per 
cent. 

One immense barrier that stood in the way of 
American trade expansion in China, the li kin (or 
local transportation tax), has recently been done away 



n6 The Far East 

with. The Chino-American commercial treaty, lately 
signed at Shanghai, confirms the abolition of this nui- 
sance. American trade in China had probably suffered 
in its growth more from the li kin than had that of 
any other power. This was due to the fact that most 
of our Chinese exports are rather bulky, such as ma- 
chinery, flour, cotton, petroleum, hardware, and other 
things. Their great weight was an insuperable diffi- 
culty in transporting them far inland, subject as all 
these goods were in transit to repeated and quite ex- 
cessive inland taxes or duties. The removing of these 
burdens will do more than any other single factor in 
widening our market in China. Competent judges on 
the spot predict a doubling of our exports to China 
within the next few years. But this only in case half 
of that energy and intelligence be shown by American 
merchants which are shown by them in supplying the 
congested markets of Europe. 

There is a consonance of opinion among Americans 
in China that minuter methods must be adopted by the 
merchants of the United States in trying to promote 
their Chinese trade. If syndicates were formed in this 
country for the purpose of systematically exploiting 
China, and if the same sagacity were shown by them 
which has been exhibited at home, it is safe to say that 
our chances in China would be simply enormous. 
Good, reliable, and energetic agents and special repre- 
sentatives in China would form part of this pro- 
gramme. At present there is much to be desired in 
this particular. 

Adequate American banking facilities are another 
much-needed feature. At present, banks in China are 
all owned by Russians, Germans, and Britons. It will 
scarcely be necessary to dwell on this point. Its im- 



What China Means for This Nation 1 17 

portance will be understood by every American of any 
business training. 

We need more ships, carrying American goods to 
China in American bottoms, and flying the American 
flag. The flag, as everyday experience teaches, is a 
great promoter of trade, a great advertisement. To- 
day, the American in Shanghai or any other Chinese 
port vainly strains his eyes for a sight of the starry 
banner. There is absolutely no difference of opinion 
among Americans in the Far East upon this point. 
The flag impresses the Chinaman as a visible sign of 
another nation's influence and resources, and he cor- 
respondingly respects that nation. 

Our consular service in the Far East, on the other 
hand, is probably the best to be found. This may run 
counter to the preconceived opinion of many Ameri- 
cans; it is nevertheless true. Time was, and not so 
long ago, when it was not true. That was the time 
when Far Asia was like Kamtchatka to us — a remote, 
unknown, and unimportant region. But since our ac- 
quisition of the Philippines, the state department in 
Washington has sent men to the Far East who, in 
almost every instance, have proved valuable allies in 
extending American influence and trade. 

Of one of our consular representatives in Far Asia 
it is admitted all around that he supplies Washington 
with better, earlier, and more practical information, re- 
garding fluctuations of trade and the means of reach- 
ing consumers, than any half-dozen representatives of 
other nations do with respect to their governments. 
Germany runs us a close second in the excellence of 
her consuls in the Far East. They certainly have the 
advantage of a more thorough and special training for 
their positions, and the Oriental Seminary in Berlin 



1 1 8 The Far East 

does also much to give them a better equipment lin- 
guistically than our consuls can show. The Kaiser, 
too, has his eye on every one of them, and they are 
made to feel that they are sent to the Orient to further 
by every means the greatness and commercial expan- 
sion of the fatherland. Public opinion in Germany 
also keeps a rather close watch on the German consuls 
in that part of the world, and derelictions from duty 
or the slighting of national or individual German in- 
terests are at once pointed out and rebuked in the 
vigilant home press. 

But these advantages are more than offset in the 
American consul by his greater alertness, his quicker 
perception, his greater adaptability to foreign condi- 
tions, and his inborn commercial spirit, which makes 
him see instantly commercial chances for his country- 
men which the slower intellect of his diplomatically 
trained German competitor often fails to reason out 
by laborious methods. 

In any event, it is beyond doubt that at present no 
other nation has such efficient agents for commercial 
expansion on the ground as has ours. 

In some things it is wise to take the opinion of a 
rival. Our keenest rival at present, and more particu- 
larly in the Far East, as has been said, is the German. 
And the greatest expert in Germany on foreign trade 
conditions, Dr. Vosberg-Rekow (who is chief of the 
Berlin bureau for the preparation of Germany's pro- 
jected commercial treaties), calls the American con- 
sular corps " the most vigilant sentinels who, spying 
out trade openings, make them their advantage and 
report them." Of course, this is not saying that our 
consular service is not susceptible of improvement. It 
may be that a securer tenure of office, and the complete 



What China Means for This Nation 1 1 9 

divorcement of politics from the consular office in the 
matter of appointments, might achieve even better 
results than those hitherto attained. 

We ought to have a strong navy, a navy dominating 
the Pacific. Above all, our navy ought to show itself a 
great deal more in Chinese harbours than it does. This 
would be another great asset in our favour, the impor- 
tance of which can only be appreciated by understand- 
ing on the one side Oriental, and in this case Chinese, 
character, and on the other by taking into consideration 
the future importance to us of the Pacific. 

The Chinaman is powerfully impressed by the fre- 
quent visits of large naval vessels, Russian, French, 
and German, in his ports. To him they are so many 
evidences of material superiority, and in his mind he 
classes the importance of the various powers in strict 
accordance with the number, size, and more or less 
prolonged stay of foreign men-of-war in his treaty 
harbours. There are many other reasons for the recent 
rapid decline of English influence in China, but one 
of the palpable ones is the infrequency of the appear- 
ance in Chinese waters of British naval vessels. 

For decades to come, probably all through this 
twentieth century, the construction of railroads in 
China will not only be one of the most profitable busi- 
ness ventures, but also the most important agent in the 
opening up of the country. Therefore, those nations 
displaying the greatest energy in this direction, and in- 
vesting most freely in the task, will eventually reap the 
richest harvest in China. It is sad to say that in this 
respect America has even been lagging behind little 
Belgium. Nay, Italy, poor in capital as she is, has 
already invested some millions in Chinese railroad 
projects, Switzerland, with a territory and popula- 



120 The Far East 

tion smaller than one of our medium-sized States, has 
also gone into railroad-building in China. 

As for the four chief European powers, — England, 
Russia, Germany, and France, — they have given freely 
of their abundance, and they have furthermore pre- 
empted a number of railroad opportunities in China. 
Russia, for one, has not only built (it is true, wholly 
with foreign capital) the two Manchurian lines, but 
she has a similar gigantic project on foot for the 
opening-up of Mongolia, a Chinese possession whose 
natural resources are great and whose population is 
very sparse. 

France has built railroads in her Indo-China ter- 
ritory, and is planning others in Yuen Nan and 
Szech Wan. Those in Yuen Nan do not promise 
much; that province is one of the poorest of China. 
But if she can contrive — by connecting them with 
another line into Szech Wan — to tap that extensive 
and wonderfully rich province, she will get abundant 
returns for her outlay. 

Germany's concession in Shan Tung — her colony of 
Kiao Chao — forms the starting point for another 
Chinese railroad network. She has lost no time in 
utilising her opportunities. In 1902 she began the con- 
struction of a railroad connecting Kiao Chao (the 
town of that name), Tsing Tao (by far the largest 
and most promising harbour town within her colony), 
and Tsi Nan Fu (the provincial capital of Shan Tung, 
still under Chinese dominion), and a few months ago 
she had completed the first and most important sec- 
tion of this road. She has now started the building 
of the second half. The portion of the road finished 
gives Germany direct access by rail to one of the best 
coal and mineral regions within the coast district of 



What China Means for This Nation 121 

China. The coal exists in thick layers, both of the 
bituminous and anthracite varieties. The hard coal 
mined so far is superior to that of Japan, and for Ger- 
many's naval station of Kiao Chao, as well as for the 
naval vessels of other nations, this is a most important 
fact. The iron ores made available by Germans are 
also of very fine quality. 

Great Britain, whose ambitions in the Far East have 
been dulled in a most strange way of recent years, has 
not shown enterprise in the matter of exploiting the 
possibilities of Wei Hai Wei, her most recent acqui- 
sition. Indeed, she has allowed that port, most favour- 
ably situated on a promontory of the coast of Shan 
Tung, to lie fallow. But even Great Britain, during a 
momentary revival of her former energy, has secured 
for herself a most valuable concession for the construc- 
tion of a railway into Shan Si, and the working of 
the immense mines there. To some extent, French 
capital has joined her in that venture. 

The railroad schemes present another great ad- 
vantage, for in almost every instance the concession by 
the imperial government in Peking has been coupled 
with a monopoly to exploit mines or erect factories in 
the districts which will be opened up. 

It is a strange spectacle, indeed, that a nation as 
enterprising as ours has stood by and allowed nearly 
all the nations of Europe to forestall her in the matter 
of railway building in China. If American capital 
does not bestir itself, there is grave danger that the 
favourable moment will slip by. So far, there has 
been only one American railway project in China, 
that is, one which matured beyond the initial stage. 
But even this one, after the American promoters had 
tired of Chinese official dilatoriness, was soon snapped 



122 The Far East 

up by capitalists of other nations, Belgians most of 
them, and at present there is nothing afoot from this 
side of the water. And yet it is hard to see why Ameri- 
can capital, which is now looking abroad for good op- 
portunities of investment, should continue to overlook 
the splendid chances which China offers at this juncture 
in railway building. We have, besides, a wider and 
more successful experience in that line, and possess a 
larger number of able men for such construction, than 
any competing European nation. There is every 
reason to say that all that is lacking on our part to 
get our full share of these vast enterprises is the will 
to obtain the necessary concessions. Certainly, Ameri- 
can influence in China, whether with the imperial 
court or the various provincial governments, is quite 
sufficient to secure the necessary permits. 

But, of course, American capitalists must show in 
this matter the same amount of intelligent interest and 
push which they have displayed in other countries 
where conditions were not nearly so promising. Im- 
mense activity is now being displayed in Peking by a 
score of keen-witted promoters representing other na- 
tionalities. The fear is entertained by clear-sighted 
Americans in the Far East that when finally this 
country shall be waking up to the importance of 
present advantages in this great field of exploitation, 
it may be too late. If quick American resolve was 
ever called for, it is called for in this case. Within 
the next five years a score or more of railroads will be 
constructed in different parts of China, in the coast 
belt of provinces as well as in the more interior ones, 
particularly those traversed by the Yang Tse and 
Hoang Ho. Two or three of these, at the very least, 
ought to be built and owned by Americans. That 



What China Means for This Nation 123 

would furnish us with as many all-important radiators 
of American influence and commerce. 

American missionaries in China have the reputa- 
tion of being the most active and successful. They 
form a corps of men, not very numerous, but making 
up for that by a thorough knowledge of country and 
people, whose alliance and assistance would prove in- 
valuable. 

It was said that we need a large navy. The com- 
pletion of the Panama Canal will practically double 
our naval strength. The American navy ought to be 
large enough to play a predominant role in the whole 
Pacific, and above all in China. It must be commen- 
surate with our present and future interests in those 
regions. And these interests can scarcely be overesti- 
mated. 

But we must not wait for such an increase in our 
naval strength. Now is the time to do the best we 
can with our present naval forces. The heaviest part 
of our navy should be kept in Asiatic waters. It is 
there that the conflicts of the future will occur. It is 
also there that our visible powers as an expanding 
nation should be manifest to all. The experience of 
Germany in Chinese seas has taught her the great 
importance of such visible demonstration. German 
merchants in China say that German trade increases 
with every German man-of-war that puts in at Chinese 
harbours. The Chinaman loves and reveres concrete 
power. That is a part of his very nature. And the 
only tangible power possessed by other nations with 
which he can be made acquainted in his ports (at least 
during times of peace) is the merchant vessels and 
men-of-war of those foreign " barbarians." Let us 
get this lesson by heart while it is yet time. 



124 The Far East 

The best way to get the Chinaman to buy our goods 
is to make him acquainted with them. He is not im- 
pressed by flaring advertisements, booklets explaining 
the excellence of wares, nor by any other of the 
methods used in this country in pushing sales, save 
and alone by the one method of making him taste, 
smell, and see for himself what the goods are he is 
expected to purchase. But to such demonstration he 
is readily accessible. Once he has found out that 
American tobacco is good to smoke, American flour 
good to eat in the shape of bread or cake, American 
cotton fabrics good to wear, American machinery 
strong and durable, as well as labour-saving, he is 
convinced. He will thereafter become a steady, liberal, 
and discriminating purchaser of American goods. 

To drive this knowledge home to him, it is, how- 
ever, absolutely necessary for American manufacturers 
and merchants to keep reliable and able agents and 
salesmen in China, men who are willing to take 
trouble in getting heart-to-heart talks with the Chinese 
consumer. That point was spoken of before, but it is 
of such paramount importance that it is here em- 
phatically repeated. 

But such men will also acquire an intimate knowl- 
edge of the crooked by-ways of the Chinese mind, so 
dissimilar from ours. Some of these sinuosities of 
Chinese character seem to us absurd, but they must be 
taken into account by our merchants. The German 
merchant in China is doing so, and that explains in 
very large measure the phenomenal rise in German 
trade with China during the past five years. 

American newspapers and students of foreign af- 
fairs, after Germany's seizure of Kiao Chao, jumped 
to the conclusion that that event would prove harmful 



What China Means for This Nation 125 

to German trade in China. The exact contrary is the 
truth. Even during the year of the Boxer uprising, 
German exports to China showed a decided increase, 
and that increase has since been maintained. 

In a measure it is due to the rigidity of the British 
merchant's mind that he has been losing a considerable 
fraction of his Chinese trade to his German competi- 
tor. With the same lack of adapting themselves to 
the tastes of their foreign consumer which the British 
exporters and manufacturers have shown in their deal- 
ings with South and Central American countries, and 
which have led there to similar results, they insist in 
China on putting up their goods in a manner perhaps 
eminently satisfactory to the British public, but wholly 
unsatisfactory to the Chinaman, the Corean, the 
" Jap," and the Siberian. The unwieldy and bulky 
size of many British goods on their arrival in Chinese 
ports makes transportation always difficult and costly, 
often impossible. And yet the Briton clings to this 
habit with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. Do 
not let us fall into the same error. 

It is easily within the truth to say that China, as a 
market for American goods, is capable of fivefold, nay, 
tenfold, expansion within the next ten years. Our 
exports to China are now roughly computed at about 
$30,000,000 annually (including both direct and in- 
direct ways), and that is a figure which, even now, 
beats our trade with Japan by a considerable margin. 
But if we only apply the right methods, this Chinese 
trade may be increased indefinitely. 

One fact in this connection must especially be 
dwelt upon. China is practically a virgin market, to 
be had by us without the ruinously expensive neces- 
sity of first driving out other competitors. This is a 



126 The Far East 

consideration of the first magnitude. Our manufac- 
turers have succeeded in obtaining a firm footing in 
the congested markets of Europe; but that has been 
done by dint of very hard and patient work, and at an 
enormous outlay of capital spent in preparatory la- 
bours. In China nothing of the kind is called for. 
And it furthermore happens that the very manufac- 
tures in which we are strongest, are those most in de- 
mand and yielding the steadiest profit in China. Thus 
the ground is prepared and the field is favourable for 
an immense American trade with the Celestial Empire. 

It is the neglected populations and the neglected 
markets to which the American exporter must look in 
the future. When we consider that Germany, with her 
57,000,000 of population, buys of us a matter of $200,- 
000,000 to $250,000,000 worth of goods yearly; that 
Great Britain, with her 40,000,000, takes between 
$500,000,000 and $600,000,000 of our commodities, 
and that France, with 40,000,000 also, is our customer 
to the extent of about $100,000,000, it must seem self- 
evident to every careful observer that China, with her 
more than 400,000,000 of population, and with a very 
rapid natural increase, might be turned into a market 
for American goods of greater importance than any 
of those countries, even taking into consideration the 
present low scale of earnings of the Chinaman. 

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance to us to 
prevent the partition of China among greedy Euro- 
pean powers, to conserve the Chinese market, to main- 
tain the " open door," to aid energetically in opening 
up the country and in exploiting its enormous natural 
resources, and to further, by all means, the greater 
purchasing and earning power of the average China- 
man. To raise his standard of living by, say, 50 or 



What China Means for This Nation 1 27 

100 per cent, within the next ten or twenty years, 
would mean the increase by just that percentage of 
American trading opportunities with that country. 
And this must be considered quite feasible when we 
remember that the standard of living in Japan has in- 
creased, in round figures, 300 per cent, within the 
past thirty years. The possibilities of such a market 
as China are at this very juncture of inestimable 
value to us, as its full exploitation would, in large 
measure, obviate and overcome the increasing diffi- 
culties of our domestic manufacturing situation, dif- 
ficulties which were briefly pointed out elsewhere. 



CHAPTER X 
SOME LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT RUSSIA 

The apologists for Russian aggression in the Far 
East usually advance the claim that in this ever-grow- 
ing easterly expansion that nation is subserving her 
most vital interests. They and the Russian jingo 
press make the statement that the Muscovite people ab- 
solutely require these vast Asian territories for their 
further spread, that the density of the home population 
in Europe is so great as to exert a ceaseless pressure 
eastwardly. 

This claim is entirely devoid of foundation. Let us 
examine the facts. 

According to the last census taken in Russia, that of 
1897, the European part of it, comprising a territory 
of 2,052,490 square miles, being, therefore, consider- 
ably larger than the whole remainder of Europe, has 
a population of 105,396,634. The non-Russian part of 
Europe, with only two-thirds the territory of European 
Russia, has about 283,000,000 inhabitants. Compared 
with some of the more densely settled countries of 
Europe, such as Belgium, Holland, England, Germany, 
or Italy, Russia proper is but thinly populated, her 
density being only from one-third to one-tenth that of 
the countries named. Nor are there special circum- 
stances, such as large waste lands, great desert dis- 
tricts, or infertility of soil to outweigh this considera- 
tion. On the contrary, the heart of Russia, the 50 

128 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 129 

provinces making up Russia proper, are by nature 
among the most fruitful lands of Europe. With an 
agricultural system as rational and intensive as that 
of the main countries of the rest of Europe, Russia 
proper could easily support treble her present popu- 
lation. 

But the great trouble with Russia is that her system 
of agriculture is a vicious and mistaken one. This is 
not the place to discuss this topic in its details, but it 
may be briefly mentioned that at the root of the evils 
from which agriculture in European Russia suffers 
lie these two facts: The one-crop system (mainly 
wheat or rye), forced upon the Russian peasant and 
landholder by an irrational financial economy, and the 
total lack of even the most elementary principles and 
practices of sound agriculture. As to this last-named 
point, one fact may stand for many, that the so-called 
" black-soil belt " of Russia, until not many years ago 
considered the most fertile in Europe, has never re- 
ceived any manure or other fertilising ingredients since 
the emancipation of the serfs, forty-three years ago, 
and in consequence at present shows serious signs of 
exhaustion. And that fact again is responsible for the 
frequent famines in that region, famines which have 
become a settled feature of Russian life, and which will 
not disappear until Russia's agricultural system shall 
have been radically changed. 

We see, then, that it is by no means the density of 
her population which impels great swarms of Russian 
peasants to seek the untilled fields of Siberia, but 
solely a vicious agricultural system, and for this system 
the Russian government is very largely to blame. 
That one cause leads to a train of effects. Among 
these must also be reckoned the steadily proceeding 



130 The Far East 

impoverishment of the Russian peasants, forming 95 
per cent, of her total population. 

So far has this impoverishment gone that the num- 
ber of farm cattle and horses is diminishing year by 
year ; government investigation has shown 28 per cent, 
of all Russian peasant holdings to be entirely without 
these domestic animals. The average earnings of a 
Russian peasant and his family (each family esti- 
mated at seven heads), are given by the government 
at $32 yearly, while noted Russian economists place 
the amount considerably lower. But taking the 
government figure, the average Russian earns less 
than either the " Jap " or the Chinaman, truly a sig- 
nificant fact. 

The Asiatic dominions of Russia comprise 6,326,- 
554 square miles. If we exclude Caucasia, a small 
province just beyond the border of Russia proper and 
very densely settled, this vast region has a population 
of only about two to the square mile. This is not in- 
cluding Manchuria, but even if that Chinese province 
be reckoned under the head of Russian possessions in 
Asia, the figure would remain substantially the same. 
It is idle, therefore, to talk of the need of Russia for a 
further aggrandisement of her territory. Whatever 
rate of calculation we may adopt, the present size of 
Russia's Asiatic dominions would amply suffice for the 
expansion of European Russia's population for centu- 
ries to come, no matter how rapid the increase of that 
population. And speaking of that increase, it is little 
known that in the case of a very large portion of Euro- 
pean Russia, namely, precisely the afore-mentioned 
" black-soil belt," forming the very heart of the empire, 
the population is almost stationary. To be exact, the 
increase in that region is only 0.26, while the increase 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 131 

for the entire empire is a trifle over one per cent, per 
annum. The greatest increase in population in Russia 
is in her most densely settled portions, viz., the ten 
provinces constituting Poland. Together, they com- 
prise only 49,084 square miles, with a population of 
9,401,097 souls, and the annual rate of increase there 
and in the small Baltic German provinces of Livonia, 
Courland, and Esthonia, is about 2.2, or almost ten 
times the rate of the " black-soil belt." 

For the whole empire, the density of population, in 
1897, was 15.3 to the square mile, while that of Japan 
is 296 to the square mile. It is Japan, therefore, which 
with justice may talk of the need of expansion; of all 
lands under the sun, Russia has the least right to set 
up this plea in extenuation of her aggressive Asian 
policy. 

As a customer of ours, Russia has not played much 
of a figure. Indeed, taking into consideration the 
vastness of the country and the great size of her popu- 
lation, our exports to, and imports from, her have been 
pitifully small. In 1880, we exported to Russia a 
trifle over $13,000,000, and in 1903, something in ex- 
cess of $17,000,000. Even such a small country as 
Belgium bought five times more of us. 

Nor is this likely to change in the near future. For 
one reason, the exports of Russia are all of a nature of 
which we ourselves have abundance, namely, cereals 
and other agricultural products. She is, therefore, 
in her exports one of our chief rivals. As to American 
imports in Russia, the case at first does not seem so 
plain, for she has need of all those manufactures in 
the making of which we excel, above all, machinery of 
every type, railroad building material, locomotives, 
freight and passenger cars, the equipments for street 



132 The Far East 

railways, hardware, cotton goods, raw cotton, canned 
articles, agricultural implements, and all sorts of 
factory gear. She does buy a certain amount of these 
things of us, but the amount is, as we have seen, com- 
paratively very small. Russia does her greatest for- 
eign trade with Germany, and next with England. 

Russia's whole foreign trade, however, is insignifi- 
cant for so large and populous a country. The whole 
volume of her exports and imports is no larger than is 
our export to Great Britain. This fact is susceptible 
of a very simple explanation. Russia is very poor, 
not in natural resources, but in capital and enterprise 
to exploit them. She has an immense national debt, 
about $4,250,000,000, and a foreign debt of about $1,- 
900,000,000, and the interest charge on that, payable 
in gold, is a constant and enormous strain on her 
finances. To develop her natural resources, even as 
far as she has, Russia had to depend on foreign 
capital. 

To bring her exports and imports within such 
figures as to permit Russia to pay the interest on her 
foreign debt without draining the country of its gold, 
her financial genius during the past decade, Witte, 
adopted and carried out his peculiar system. This 
system produced results which, on their face, looked 
very brilliant, and which certainly have enabled Russia 
fo maintain her gold standard and do away with the 
former curse of an unsettled and fluctuating currency. 
But looking at the' facts more closely, the discovery is 
made that Witte's financial policy has been accom- 
plished at the expense of the vital element of her pop- 
ulation, the peasantry, thus in the long run steadily 
impoverishing the nation. The other chief creation of 
Witte, Russia's newborn industry, is a sham and a pre- 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 133 

tence, and its utter collapse three years ago will not lead 
to a revival under existing circumstances. 

Thus, it is all very well to tell us, as Senator Bev- 
eridge does in his recent book, " The Russian Ad- 
vance," that Russia is a " virgin market," and to invite 
us to conquer it. But how is it to be done ? Certainly 
not under the present tariff and revenue system of the 
empire. For the tariff is prohibitive on most com- 
modities which this country could supply, and the 
present Russian revenue system makes a large increase 
of Russia's imports an impossibility. Besides, the 
evils which have led to Russia's impoverishment and 
which have left her barely two or three million in- 
habitants of moderately affluent circumstances, out of 
her total population of 130,000,000, have been of slow 
growth and are so deeply ingrained in the character of 
both government and people as to require many years 
of gradual, yet radical reform, before they can be much 
mended. 

The simple truth is that Russia, at the present day, 
is one of the poorest markets for the exporter. It is 
simply ignoring the inherent facts of the case to deny 
this. The only customer worth having in Russia is 
the Russian government itself, for that is the con- 
structor of her railroads, the builder of her factories 
and workshops, the provider of her armies and navy, 
and the feeder of her starving millions during times of 
famine. But unfortunately, even this customer is not 
available. For the main paragraph of Russia's eco- 
nomic code, as framed by Witte, is a policy of exclu- 
sion. In other words, the Russian government has set 
out to create all those things on home soil and with 
home material which it needs for the above purposes. 

That explains why, even with such gigantic under- 



134 The Far East 

takings as were the building of the Transsiberian 
Railroad and its two Manchurian branches, but a tiny 
fragment of the material used was bought of this 
country. It further explains why the whole Siberian 
market, which, by reason of our geographical posi- 
tion, and on the strength of other grounds, we ought 
to dominate, has proved practically inaccessible to us. 
Look at the figures of our foreign trade, and you will 
see that though the Siberian coast is only something 
over 4000 miles away from us, and though that is 
much nearer than are the Russian supplies in Moscow 
or St. Petersburg, we yet have exported thence for a 
number of years past but a paltry million dollars or so. 

In any event, Siberia is even a poorer market for 
American goods than is Russia proper. The small 
population of that enormous territory is made up, save 
a very small fraction, of people so poor, and scarcely 
half-civilised, that their wants are only the most ele- 
mentary. And these wants they supply by the labour of 
their hands. The cereal production in Siberia for 1902 
was: wheat, 30,796,000 bushels; rye, 23,080,000; oats 
34,078,000; barley, 2,628,000. But though the popu- 
lation of Siberia is only about 6,000,000, all told, the 
above figures show that her cereal production is rather 
meagre. Indeed, there are several states of much 
smaller populations within the Union which greatly 
exceed Siberia in their cereal output. And let us re- 
member that the figures quoted above comprise nearly 
all that Siberia produces ; there is scarcely anything 
else she raises or manufactures. Surely, such a 
country does not offer a very alluring field for 
American enterprise. 

Russia's determining reasons for building the 
Transsiberian Railroad were twofold. The road was 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 135 

to develop Siberia and further trade between her and 
European Russia. But the more potent reason was of 
a political and military nature. It was to aid Russian 
expansion in the Far East. So far, it has proved val- 
uable only in the latter direction. As a commercial 
venture, as a means of developing Siberian resources 
and affording a large transit trade, this road has 
proved a distinct failure. The annual deficit in the 
accounts of the Transsiberian Railroad is simply 
frightful. The receipts are small. The amount of 
freight it carries is lower than on any of our own more 
important branch lines. The hopes entertained by 
Witte and the whole Russian government in this con- 
nection have not been fulfilled. Probably 50 years or 
more will be required before this railroad shall reach 
a paying basis, and meanwhile Russia's exchequer will 
be annually charged with a more or less considerable 
balance the wrong way. For last year the deficit of 
this road amounted to almost $25,000,000. 

However, the Transsiberian Railroad was a neces- 
sity. Ultimately, it will prove of great economic 
advantage to the whole empire, but before that stage is 
reached the road will not only have to be practically re- 
built, but its present capacity will have to be doubled 
or trebled. For, at this writing, it is but a poor ram- 
shackle affair, one-track throughout, rails and rolling- 
stock of the lightest description, and resting on a bed 
which, under the rigors of the severe Siberian climate, 
is wholly insufficient. And yet it took, in round 
figures, $500,000,000 to build it, all of it representing 
borrowed capital. It took another $250,000,000 to 
construct and equip the two Manchurian branches. 

There are many who credit Russia with great states- 
manship and economic sagacity in building these roads 



136 The Far East 

in Manchuria. The latter traverse a sparsely settled 
country, and only connect with the Transsiberian Rail- 
road. It is quite safe to say that, as economic enter- 
prises, these Manchurian roads will prove even more 
pronounced failures than the Transsiberian has so far 
proved. Viewing them merely from the angle of Rus- 
sian aggressive policy, of military strategy, and as a 
visible sign of Russia's expanding political power, 
they may, however, prove a success. On the other 
hand, even in that limited sense, they may eventually 
become a white elephant for Russia. The final issue 
of this present war will largely determine that ques- 
tion. For a country so poor in capital as Russia, a 
country with a home population whose most crying 
material needs are insufficiently supplied, these Man- 
churian roads are, economically considered, a gigantic 
folly. 

It is quite true that Siberia (and, possibly, Man- 
churia hereafter) is becoming the home of larger and 
larger numbers of Russian peasants, drawn mainly 
from the famine-visited provinces in Europe. This 
immigration from the interior of Russia has become a 
settled feature. It varies greatly in volume during suc- 
cessive years, but it does not average more than about 
80,000 per year. Every spring following on a famine 
year in Russia proper, sees shoals of half-starved peas- 
ants, accompanied by their whole families, slowly mak- 
ing their way towards Siberia. Mostly they settle in 
those districts of western Siberia enjoying a compara- 
tively mild climate. There are districts there which 
are already rather densely settled and which have 
begun to show, under the same unwise system of agri- 
culture which is followed in Russia proper, signs of 
soil exhaustion. So much so that, during the severe 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 137 

famine of 1901 which ravaged the " black-soil belt " 
of interior Russia, a part of western Siberia was sim- 
ilarly afflicted. These districts at that time received 
no inconsiderable share of the government assistance, 
paid out in money and kind. 

The Russian government encourages immigration 
into Siberia by every possible means. It furnishes 
Russian peasant families going there, on application, 
and on the recommendation of their village communes, 
not only with free transportation, but also with money, 
seed, often building material, and free land. Nat- 
urally, such assisted immigration is largely directed 
to the more inhospitable regions of Siberia, always far 
to the east and frequently a long distance off from 
railroads and other signs of civilisation. 

This settled government policy, if pursued for fifty 
years or longer, will, of course, in the end produce 
great results. It may in the course of time, say within 
a generation or two, cover the more undesirable parts 
of Siberia with a chain of more or less flourishing 
settlements, villages, and rural towns. But it is slow 
work, and the hardships for the settlers, even those 
coming from the poverty-stricken provinces in the 
heart of Russia, are immense. For all that, the lot 
of the Siberian peasant is, on most accounts, prefer- 
able to that of his fellow in Russia proper. 

It would be going too far, though, to expect the 
Russian peasant settler in Siberia to attain within a 
measurable space of time to anything like that degree 
of prosperity which awaits the first or the second gen- 
eration of settlers in our Prairie states. The climate 
and the soil of Siberia speak against that. A more im- 
portant factor, however, than these unfavourable 
natural conditions is the peculiar character of the 



138 The Far East 

Russian peasant himself. He is the reverse of inde- 
pendent, and looks forever to the authorities above 
him, to the government, to help him out of all his 
straits. Physically, he is generally hardy and fit to 
cope with the difficult climate. But he lacks entirely 
that sturdy virility of character which our Western 
settlers exhibit. He is not very diligent and is unused 
to continuous and intense labour. The enormous 
number of holidays enjoined on him by the Orthodox 
Church of Russia, all of which he faithfully keeps, 
and which take about 150 days out of the 365 of the 
whole year, alone unfit him for competition with 
western producers. He has the village commune idea 
firmly imbedded in his mind, and that idea greatly 
impedes, and in many cases renders impossible, indi- 
vidual enterprise as well as individual prosperity. He 
always wants to work en masse, in what the Russian 
calls the artel (an association of workmen on the com- 
munistic principle), and that again precludes the 
growth of individualism. In a word, then, the Rus- 
sian settler in Siberia takes with him to his new home 
and his new conditions nearly all that heavy load of 
undesirable qualities and ideas which have prevented 
him from achieving a fair measure of prosperity in 
the village of interior Russia whence he came. 

From the above it will be seen that to draw a par- 
allel between this Slav frontiersman and the American 
one in the Far West is to do something wide of the 
mark. There are undoubtedly a number of admirable 
qualities about the humble Russian peasant. He is a 
happy-go-lucky fellow, seldom, if ever, complaining 
of his hard lot. He is good-humoured in the extreme, 
and for sole diversion quite contented with an occa- 
sional vodka spree. He is charitable, and always ready 



Some Little-known Facts about Russia 139 

to lend a helping hand to his fellows or a stranger. He 
is pious and devout after his own fashion, and he is 
intensely loyal to Czar and Church. 

But all these good qualities do not help him much 
in his fight with the wilderness, and they are not cal- 
culated to make out of him the material with which 
great commonwealths are built. Dumb obedience is 
not a characteristic that makes for sturdy inde- 
pendence. 

Siberia will never become what our Far West was 
and is, the cradle and the home of a pronouncedly 
manly race. 



THE PACIFIC AND THE PANAMA 
CANAL 



CHAPTER XI 
THE PANAMA CANAL 

At last, then, it is certain that the Panama Canal will 
be completed, and that this work will be done by us 
and without further loss of time. The completion of 
this task will mark a new era in the political and com- 
mercial conditions of the world. It will divert one- 
half the trade-current of this globe into new channels. 
It will make of the Pacific the Mediterranean of the 
twentieth and succeeding centuries. No other nation 
can possibly profit half as much from the Panama 
Canal as will the United States. True, the whole 
world is to be the gainer, but to us will fall the lion's 
share. 

To dig a canal across the isthmus of Panama, a 
distance of only 36 miles at the narrowest, is not a 
new idea. In fact, it has been mooted ever since the 
discovery of this hemisphere. Columbus set out to 
reach the Far East by sailing west. A continental 
wall, nearly 9000 miles in length, forbade him to 
realise his bold vision. And for 400 years men have 
dreamed of piercing this wall, thus saving a third of 
the distance in circumnavigating the earth. We are 
told by a Spanish historian that Philip II., in 1551, 
conceived the importance of cutting the isthmus. The 
long rebellion of the Spanish Netherlands, culminat- 
ing finally in the independence and autonomy of the 
northern provinces, and the establishment of a Dutch 

143 



144 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

nation, drove such plans from the tyrant's head. Since 
then, this idea has been revived at intervals. Nelson, 
England's great naval hero, in 1779, urged it upon 
his government. Napoleon I. saw the future impor- 
tance of an interoceanic canal through the isthmus, and 
because of his clear perception of it, the American nego- 
tiations for the Louisiana Purchase had almost failed. 

But not until after the Suez Canal had been built, 
thus showing that the immense engineering difficul- 
ties of such an undertaking could be overcome, did the 
scheme of piercing the narrow ribbon of rock and 
morass of the isthmus assume tangible shape. Again 
it was Lesseps and French capital that approached the 
task. But the difficulties in this case were far greater 
in every way than those that had been vanquished at 
Suez. A torrid and unhealthy climate, a total lack of 
sanitary measures, much greater obstacles in excavat- 
ing, due to the nature of the territory, and expendi- 
tures far exceeding all the estimates made by experts, — 
these were among the factors that led to ultimate 
French failure. With that, corruption had crept in, 
soiling even the skirts of that extraordinary man who 
had first conceived the plan. 

French pride long struggled against admission of 
failure, but at last that sentiment yielded to stubborn 
facts. Who should be the heir to take up his work at 
the point where Lesseps had dropped it? 

The voice of the people of the United States de- 
clared almost unanimously that it must be they, if any- 
body. No European nation dared meddle with the 
great task. The South and Central American peoples 
were financially not potent, and commercially not de- 
veloped enough to engage in such an enterprise. 
Everything conspired to thrust the task on our shoul- 



The Panama Canal 145 

ders. The Monroe doctrine, as at present widely in- 
terpreted, would not permit the interference of Euro- 
pean nations with an undertaking that concerned pri- 
marily American interests. Any attempt of that kind 
would have been interpreted here as a distinctly un- 
friendly act, and thus it was that both England and 
Germany kept their hands off. Besides, all Europe 
recognised the fact that the fruits of the canal would 
largely drop into the lap of this nation. 

But the United States was in no hurry to become the 
successor of the French Panama Company. There 
was a good deal about the idea that was repugnant to 
American notions. There was also another project 
afoot, the building of a transoceanic canal in Nica- 
ragua. In fact, for some time the latter was in the 
ascendant. There were reasons for this. It was a 
purely American idea, and to carry it out would not 
have meant to complete an unfinished French job. 
Quite a deal of preliminary work had been done in 
Nicaragua by American capital and engineers. The 
climate there was not nearly so trying, and though the 
route would have been much longer, the engineering 
task itself, by taking advantage of lakes and rivers 
along the projected line, was the easier of the two. 
No political complications were to be expected with 
Nicaragua. American commercial interests in that 
country were already considerable and rapidly grow- 
ing. There were strong advocates for this route in 
the United States Senate and elsewhere. Altogether, 
the champions of the Nicaragua project made a very 
formidable showing, so much so that, even at the final 
passage of the Panama Canal bill, the President was 
empowered to revert to the Nicaragua project if the 
other had failed. 



146 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

Then there was the question of paying the Panama 
Company in France for the work accomplished, and the 
property left by them along the line of the proposed 
isthmian canal. That question, too, was settled to 
mutual satisfaction, our government agreeing to pay 
$40,000,000 in all. But a greater difficulty arose. 
The government of Colombia, exercising sovereign 
power over the Panama district, thought it saw a good 
way of mulcting the people of the United States — 
rolling in wealth, according to their notion — of dis- 
proportionate sums in payment of the privilege sought. 
On our side it was recognised that the new canal would 
immeasurably enrich the province of Panama, and, in- 
cidentally, the whole of Colombia. Therefore, while 
willing to pay a fair price for the right to build the 
canal, the government and people of this country dis- 
liked intensely being made the object of a " bunco 
game." 

But the proverbial good luck of the United States 
suddenly rid us of this dilemma. The people of the 
Panama district, who had been unwilling spectators of 
these questionable machinations of their central gov- 
ernment, and who had been for many years desirous 
of forming a separate political entity, rose against 
Colombia. Their measures had been taken with such 
sagacity that the thing was done in a twinkling. 
Within twenty-four hours Colombia's sovereignty in 
Panama was at an end. Our government in Wash- 
ington promptly recognised the independence of the 
new state. Much bellicose talk was indulged in by the 
outwitted Colombians, but that was froth, and nothing 
came of it. 

Naturally, our government had shrewdly taken ad- 
vantage of the new situation thus created. The agree- 



The Panama Canal 147 

ment made between it and Panama relative to the 
construction of the canal was still on a liberal basis, 
so far as money went, $10,000,000 being paid them for 
the privilege, but it was far more to our purpose than 
had been the proposed agreement with Colombia. It 
gave us practically complete control, not only of the 
canal itself, but of the adjoining territory. Its pro- 
visions are such that, hereafter, the United States will 
be master of the canal and its approaches, both in time 
of peace and war. 

The importance of this agreement to our future po- 
litical, commercial, and naval expansion, in the Pacific 
as well as in the Caribbean Sea, can scarcely be over- 
estimated. It will be the main pillar of our future 
strength in those all-important regions. 

It now remains for us to finish what Lesseps left 
unfinished. This is a task of considerable magnitude. 
It will require a vast outlay of money, and much time ; 
Congress has appropriated the money, and the canal 
commission appointed by Mr. Roosevelt will see to its 
wise expenditure. Possibly the canal will be finished 
within five years, but it is more likely that eight or 
ten years will be required. The distance dug by the 
Panama Company is barely one-third; the remaining 
two-thirds may not cost as many lives as did the first 
third (notwithstanding the same murderous climate), 
but from an engineering point of view, the work yet to 
be done presents extraordinary difficulties. However, 
these are considerations which do not weigh heavily in 
the scale. The main thing is, that the completion of 
this canal within a few years is now an assured fact. 
The results accruing from it may at this writing be 
fairly discounted. Five or ten years are as nothing 
in the life of a nation, and after their lapse we shall be 



148 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

confronted by a chain of concrete facts which can be 
stated to a nicety to-day. These facts, in the main, 
are of a nature geographical, commercial, and polit- 
ical. 

The theory that geographical situation has much to 
do with the history of a nation, that, in fact, this one 
item has been and is the main factor in the develop- 
ment or the retarding of a people, is of comparatively 
recent growth. But it is now generally accepted by 
students of history. Geographical situation, indeed, 
explains nearly all of the apparent enigmas of history. 
Geographical conditions influence powerfully the evo- 
lution of civilisation and the shaping of national 
character and life. They determine food, dress, oc- 
cupations, customs, laws, social life, and even religions. 
The French historian, Victor Cousin, expressed this : 
" Tell me the geography of a country, and I will tell 
you its future." 

Modern history dates from the discovery of Amer- 
ica. New geographical conditions, or, to be more 
precise, new knowledge of them, have been among the 
most stimulating or disturbing factors in the world's 
history. A geographically isolated situation has in- 
variably been accompanied by barbarism or gradual 
decay. Our time has seen the earth growing much 
smaller, and its inhabitants brought closer together, 
and this is as much as to say that a new and strong 
impetus has been given to the spread of civilisation all 
over the habitable globe, and to the furtherance of 
friendly intercourse. 

The cutting of the Panama Canal will be the most 
important geographical event since the discovery of 
America. It will outweigh, by far, in its consequences 
the discovery of the sixth continent, Australia, though 



The Panama Canal 149 

in itself it will add nothing either to our knowledge or 
to the resources of the earth. 

Not even the Suez Canal can compare with this new 
canal in saving of sailing distances. The Suez Canal 
makes a difference of 3300 miles between London and 
Canton, 4325 between London and Bombay; the 
Panama Canal will save from 5000 to 8000 miles to 
most ships passing through it. The decrease in dis 
tance between London and San Francisco will be 720c 
miles, almost one-half of the whole ; but between New 
York and San Francisco the saving effected will be 
10,080 miles, more than two-thirds of the whole dis- 
tance. As early as 1879, President Hayes said: " An 
interoceanic canal across the American isthmus will 
essentially change the geographic relations between 
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, 
and between the United States and the rest of the 
world." 

The Mississippi Valley, with its area of 1,244,000 
square miles, is as large as Europe without Russia. 
Commercially and politically, this is the most impor- 
tant valley in the world. Its size, inexhaustible fer- 
tility, great variety of products, the energy of its 
people, the 5000 miles of its waterways navigable by 
steam, and the southward flow of its great river, pre- 
sent together features of potential greatness which we 
see unequalled anywhere else. After the completion of 
the Panama Canal, this valley will have a new and most 
important opening for its products by way of this 
canal. It will no longer have to depend on expensive 
railway freight routes ; the low-priced sea route will 
be readily accessible to it. A time may come when 
sea-going vessels will pass from Chicago or Duluth 
down the Mississippi and on to the Pacific. Within 



150 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

another twenty years the Mississippi Valley will be 
peopled by 60 or 70 millions, and the volume of its prod- 
ucts will have doubled. These products can then go, 
as they now do, to the Atlantic border and to Europe ; 
but they will have the additional and just as important 
outlet towards the whole Pacific, the western coasts of 
South and Central America, our own magnificent 
stretch of Pacific coast, and the populous countries be- 
yond the sea — China, Japan, Asiatic Russia, Corea, 
the Dutch East Indies, and even British India. For, 
once the Panama Canal is constructed, a cheap and 
continuous sea route will make interchange of com- 
modities with those countries economically feasible. 

And here we touch upon the commercial significance 
of the canal. Clear-sighted Henry Clay, during his 
term as secretary of state, in 1825, already recognised 
the commercial importance of an interoceanic canal, 
saying: " The execution of it will form a great epoch 
in the commercial affairs of the whole world." 

At present the distance from New York to San 
Francisco (around Cape Horn) is 14,840 miles. The 
Panama Canal will reduce this to something less than 
5000. A saving of two-thirds in time and distance 
will put the Atlantic-Pacific trade of the United States 
on an entirely new basis, and its immense growth can 
be safely predicted. The economic advantages which 
our shippers, merchants, and manufacturers will enjoy 
after the completion of the canal, will soon outdistance 
those of both the Briton and the German. It will un- 
questionably bring about the revival of our shipping, 
and this for the simple reason that shipping will once 
more become a well-paying business. It has been com- 
puted that on a, single voyage of a 1500-ton sailing 
vessel between Port Townsend, Seattle, or San Fran- 



The Panama Canal 151 

cisco, and Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, the 
saving effected in wages, repairs, insurance, provi- 
sions, and freight charges, by reason of the Panama 
Canal, will aggregate between $8000 and $9500. 
Such an illustration speaks for itself. 

But the existence of the Panama Canal will also 
create a vast amount of new commerce. Hitherto 
many commodities, especially along the Pacific slope, 
were commercially not available, by reason of ex- 
cessive cost of transportation. The exports of our 
Pacific coast are, for the most part, raw stuffs. Some 
of the chief ones will not bear long carriage, as, for 
instance, lumber. Yet the lumber supply of our At- 
lantic states is being exhausted. Cheap transportation 
between the two sections of the country will be a great 
blessing to both. Pacific lumber, for building pur- 
poses, will, in the near future, become an exceedingly 
important article of commerce between the two coasts, 
In the one state of Washington some 200,000,000,- 
000 feet of splendid timber, mostly yellow and red fir, 
are awaiting the axe. A calculation has been made 
that the Panama Canal will mean $2 added to the 
value of every thousand feet of lumber in forests 
skirting the Puget Sound. The supply of splendid 
lumber in Oregon, Alaska, and British Columbia is 
far greater. William H. Seward once said : " This 
region seems destined to become a gigantic shipyard 
for the supply of all nations." 

Wheat and other cereals are also important products 
of our Pacific coast which will be very favourably af- 
fected by the completion of the Panama Canal. At 
present these products must take the long route around 
Cape Horn to reach the European market, being four 
months or more in transit, and thus the shipper practi ■ 



152 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

cally indulges in a game of chance every time he sends 
a cargo. He can never tell in advance about the fluctu- 
ations in price, and the whole trade is thereby not only 
demoralised, but greatly hampered. The canal will 
reduce this to a twenty-five days' journey, and wheat 
export from California will thereafter become a mer- 
cantile transaction yielding a reasonable profit. 

Again, the Pacific coast at present lies nearer to 
Liverpool than to New York, and the great trade of 
the western coast of Central and South America goes, 
chiefly for that reason, largely through the hands of 
Great Britain and Germany. The Panama Canal will 
change all this. Distances will then be greatly in 
favour of New York, in fact, by as much as 2700 to 
3500 miles. Add to this advantage our facilities for 
manufacture, and the control of the South and Central 
American markets will be the natural result. 

The decay of our southern states has been deplored 
by all good Americans. But this very belt of former 
slave states will, comparatively speaking, be benefited 
in a larger degree by the Panama Canal than almost 
any other region. It will depend on them whether they 
avail themselves of their advantages or no. New 
Orleans will be 700 miles nearer to the canal than New 
York, and Charleston, Savannah, Galveston, and other 
Southern ports in proportion. Alabama possesses great 
wealth of coal and ore, but this has up to the present 
been exploited with only mediocre success, owing 
largely to competition with the north. This fine Ala- 
bama coal can be put on shipboard at Mobile for $1.50 
per ton. The Pacific coast is poorly supplied with coal 
and iron ore, and Alabama will be enabled to do a 
thriving trade to those regions. For thousands of 
steamers coming from or going to the Panama 



The Panama Canal 153 

Canal, Alabama coal will be an article of growing 
necessity. 

It was pointed out in a previous chapter that Japan 
buys most of her cotton of India. Though of short 
staple, this Indian cotton is lower in price than ours. 
The present enormous distance between the American 
cotton fields and the nearest Japanese harbours is 
largely responsible for that fact. Yet, raw cotton is 
the chief item of import in Japan, amounting to nearly 
$60,000,000 last year, of which our share was but 
$12,000,000. China's imports in cotton are also very 
large; they form a rapidly rising part of her whole 
foreign trade. When the canal has been dug, ocean 
steamers can load with cotton on the Mississippi River 
or Gulf docks, and sail direct for Japan and China. 
The enormous saving in distance and freight charges 
will enable us to compete successfully with cotton from 
British India. 

In a word, the canal will give our Pacific coast in- 
creased access to European markets, while it will give 
our Atlantic and Gulf coasts command of the Asiatic 
markets. 

Mr. Colquhoun, in his books on the Pacific, admits 
the great role which the Panama Canal will play in 
our future development. He puts it in this way : " It 
will bind together the remote sections of that immense 
country, assimilate its diverse interests, go far to- 
wards solving many difficult problems, and make the 
United States still more united. ... It is primarily 
an American affair, and therefore need not be regarded 
with jealousy by the Old World. . . . The canal will 
complete a perfect equatorial belt of navigation around 
the world through the gateways of Suez and Panama. 
No greater impulse to commerce can be given than 



154 



The Pacific and the Panama Canal 



this complement to the Suez Canal. It will benefit 
America in an infinitely greater degree than Europe. 
. . . It will bring Japan, Northern China, Australasia, 
and part of Malaysia nearer to the Atlantic cities of 
the United States than they are now to England. . . . 




It will give an immense impetus to United States man- 
ufactures, especially cotton and iron, and will greatly 
stimulate the shipbuilding industry and the develop- 
ment of the naval power of the United States " (from 
"Key to the Pacific"). 

And elsewhere he says : " One of the greatest draw- 
backs to the western states is the expense and 
difficulty with which produce is conveyed to the great 
markets of the world. The canal will change this, and 
besides other advantages will have this in its wake of 
immensely furthering the denser settlement of the 
Pacific slope. It will enormously increase the working 
agricultural class there, at present only able to make a 



The Panama Canal 155 

bare living out of the land, due to the policy of the 
railway trusts " (from " The Mastery of the Pacific "). 

Coming from the pen of a noted British writer, these 
statements may well be looked upon as untinged with 
American patriotic fervour and optimism. 

Finally, a word as to the political bearing of the 
Panama Canal. Its most obvious advantage in this 
respect will be in uniting our coast lines, and in bring- 
ing the most remote portions of our territory into 
much closer relations. 

Virtually the canal will be, as President Hayes said 
in one of his messages, " a part of the coast line of 
the United States." This is one of the reasons which 
makes it imperative for us to control and protect it. 
That point has been conceded by the European powers. 
It is eminently a requirement of self-protection for us 
to dominate the canal. Else, during any future politi- 
cal complications, it would be within the power of a 
belligerent to cleave asunder our two coasts and thus 
deprive us of half our strength. Captain Mahan in 
one of his books shows very clearly this strategic ne- 
cessity. 

Some European writers have pointed to the neutral- 
isation of the Suez Canal as an example worthy for us 
to follow. But the two cases are by no means analo- 
gous. Great Britain commands, at the most important 
points along the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the 
approaches to the Suez Canal — Gibraltar, Malta, 
Cyprus, and Aden. These strongholds and England's 
naval supremacy make the Suez Canal practically 
British property. Their effect is to destroy, for all 
valid purposes, the nominal neutralisation of the Suez 
Canal. Besides, the Suez Canal only joins Britain 
with her Asiatic possessions, and is by no means vital 



156 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

to her home interests in the sense in which the Panama 
Canal will be vital to ours. The Suez Canal does not 
cut in two or connect the two halves of the British 
island kingdom, and to close it at any time to Brit- 
ish men-of-war, or to permit the vessels of her foe 
to make use of it, would not be nearly as serious a 
blow to her chances in the future war as would the 
closing of the Panama Canal to us under like circum- 
stances. 

Secretary Tracy, who first began to create our new 
navy, pointed to the necessity of maintaining two 
powerful and independent navies — one in the Atlantic, 
the other in the Pacific — if the Panama Canal were 
never built or not made absolutely available for our 
naval purposes. He first directed attention to the 
fact that under present conditions the Asiatic squad- 
ron of a foreign power could cross the Pacific and de- 
stroy, successively, San Francisco, Seattle, Port Town- 
send, and any other of our ports along that coast, be- 
fore a fleet sailing from our Atlantic seaboard could 
meet it. And the able chief engineer of our navy, 
George W. Melville, has made similarly cogent re- 
marks. He called the canal an element in the utilisa- 
tion of the mobile defences of the United States, the 
importance of which is approached by none other. 
" Without it," he went on, " the fleet of one coast is 
unavailable for the other; with it, every naval gun 
may be turned upon the foe, whether he shall come 
from east or west." 

Not quite so obvious, but more far-reaching and 
just as important will be the effect which the canal 
will have in rendering the population of this country 
more homogeneous, politically more united, and more 
subject to the same material and social influences. It 



The Panama Canal 157 

will be a destroyer of sectionalism ; at least it will 
make in that direction. In short, the Panama Canal 
will incidentally increase American community of in- 
terests and thought. That alone will be a factor of 
incalculable value. 

One weak point in our armament, so far as the 
Panama Canal is concerned, is the fact that Great 
Britain exerts dominating naval power in the Carib- 
bean Sea. In the possession of Jamaica, Great 
Britain holds the strongest naval position there. The 
Bahamas complement her strategic strength. The 
proximity of Halifax increases it. All through the 
West Indies she is overpoweringly strong. True, she 
is a friendly power, at present probably the only sin- 
cere well-wisher we have among the great powers. 
But it is never wise for statesmanship to build great 
plans on the transient sentiments of another nation. 
Keen commercial rivalry, such as the Briton to-day 
still bears from his Transatlantic cousin without much 
of a grudge, may in the end ripen into a positive feel- 
ing of animosity. Certainly, in the case of Germany 
that was the determining cause which estranged 
Briton and Teuton. The ill-feeling between the two 
nations began in a small way, but it grew apace and 
has since assumed the form of settled rancour. 

Now, the point may be made that American com- 
mercial interests to-day run decidedly more counter to 
British ones than do the German ; and that will be the 
case in a greatly heightened degree hereafter, At the 
worst, Germany is Britain's rival, commercially speak- 
ing, but by no means her equal in wealth, prestige, or 
colonial possessions. The American, however, is even 
now more than the Briton's equal in all the essentials 
of power, and furthermore, the American hereafter will 



158 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

do more than anybody else in curtailing British profits 
and British influence abroad. 

The sturdy Briton is beginning to see that point, and 
it may be shrewdly suspected that it will be made 
plainer to him in the very near future. Blood is 
thicker than water, but in an age ruled by material in- 
terests such sentiment will scarcely outweigh, for long, 
tangible reasons of the kind named. The day may 
come when another Williams will write a book on 
" Made in America," and Parliament may pass a 
law such as that body aimed at all German-made 
products. 

At any rate, it would be a matter of sincere congrat- 
ulation to every clear-eyed American if England could 
see her way to disposing to Uncle Sam of her West 
Indian possessions, including, of course, her fortified 
harbours and naval stations there. That, indeed, would 
be a striking proof of the sincerity and potency of her 
cousinly feelings. She might do this all the more 
readily as her West Indian possessions no longer 
" pay." The proximity of the United States, our com- 
mercial supremacy, the acquisition of Porto Rico by 
us, and our reciprocity treaty with Cuba are all factors 
which make towards the steady impoverishment of 
the British West Indian isles. Once a source of great 
wealth to England, these isles are now a drain on her 
imperial revenues. Jamaica has become a sturdy 
beggar at the door of Parliament. The Bermudas 
would starve if they could not sell their potatoes and 
" garden truck " to New York. Altogether, these 
British dependencies are in a most unhealthy economic 
state. It is probably no other feeling than pride which 
prevents England, while she may, from getting rid of 
the West Indies on liberal terms. It will be of interest to 



The Panama Canal 159 

see how long this feeling will interfere with a rational 
solution of the problem. 

And yet to us the West Indies would be of para- 
mount importance. To quote again Captain Mahan, 
regarded by many as the keenest living writer on 
naval strategy, he says in his book, " The Interest of 
America in Sea Power " : " In the cluster of island 
fortresses of the Caribbean is one of the greatest of 
the nerve centres of the whole body of European civil- 
isation," and further on he refers to this archipelago 
as " the very domain of sea power, if ever region 
could be called so." " Control of a maritime region is 
insured primarily by a navy; secondarily, by positions, 
suitably chosen and spaced one from the other, upon 
which as bases the navy rests, and from which it can 
exert its strength. At present the positions of the 
Caribbean are occupied by foreign powers; nor may 
we, however disposed to acquisition, obtain them by 
means other than righteous. But a distinct advance 
will have been made when public opinion is convinced 
that we need them, and should not exert our utmost 
ingenuity to dodge them when flung at our head." 

At this writing, therefore, it cannot be said truth- 
fully that our eastern approaches to the Panama Canal 
are quite as undisputed as might be wished. But our 
possession of Porto Rico and our virtual suzerainty 
over Cuba count for much, and there is something in 
the air which seems to foretell acquisition by this 
country of the Danish Antilles, and of Santo Domingo 
and Hayti. The main thing is, to keep wide awake 
and not to dodge, as Captain Mahan says, any of 
these islands, " when flung at our head." 

In a Senate report, some years ago, it was estimated 
that the isthmian canal, in the second year of its use, 



160 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

would probably show vessels, aggregating 6,500,000 
in tonnage, passing through it, and that this figure 
could be expected to rise rapidly thereafter, inasmuch 
as nearly 12,000,000 tons of shipping would still be 
left within the zone of its attraction (after deducting 
the above figure), depending for its choice of routes 
chiefly on the canal tolls which might be adopted. 
This estimate may be taken to be rather too conserva- 
tive than otherwise. 

The tonnage which passed through the Suez Canal, 
in 1870, the first year of its use, was 436,600; in 1871, 
it was 761,464, and in 1903, it had reached a trifle over 
9,700,000. The tolls on the Suez Canal are proverb- 
ially excessive, so much so that it does not pay 
vessels of smaller or medium size to make use 
of it. 

A better standard of comparison is obtained by 
quoting figures from the traffic through the Baltic 
Canal, connecting the mouth of the Elbe River with 
Germany's chief Baltic port of Kiel. This waterway 
was opened in 1895, and it affords a safer and shorter 
route for vessels making their way either from the 
Baltic to the North Sea or vice versa. The amount of 
Baltic-North Sea shipping, however, is by no means as 
considerable as that passing between the Mediterra- 
nean and Far Asia. Furthermore, the old sea route, 
past the Skager Rack, still lies open to all vessels. 
Nevertheless, by fixing the tolls on her Baltic Canal at 
a reasonable figure, Germany has contrived to attract 
the great bulk of all seaward traffic. Five years after 
the dedication of the canal, 29,571 vessels, with an ag- 
gregate tonnage of 4,282,258, passed through this 
canal. The yearly increase of this tonnage has been 
about 25 to 30 per cent. Last year the tonnage of the 



The Panama Canal 1 6 1 

vessels making choice of this canal amounted to nearly 
6,000,000. 

From all of which the lesson may be drawn that, in 
the matter of fixing the tolls, we had better use great 
caution. Excessive rates would be suicidal. With so 
large a portion of the world's traffic passing through 
the Caribbean Sea, and with the islands under other 
ownership or more wisely administered, an industrial 
and commercial revival in the West Indies may be 
confidently looked for. 



CHAPTER XII 
SOUTH AMERICA OUR NATURAL MARKET 

With a map before our eyes it will be noticed that 
the eastern coast of North America and the western 
coast of South America are directly north and south 
of each other. Both are situated between 70 and 80 
degrees west of Greenwich, and Valparaiso lies pre- 
cisely south of Boston. This simple geographical fact 
may have escaped the attention of some. It is one 
which, after the completion of the Panama Canal, will 
become much more conspicuous. Hitherto this geo- 
graphical fact has been of no benefit to us, but it soon 
will be. South America has seemed to us very much 
out of the world, but the canal will bring our Atlantic 
and South America's Pacific coast into close relations. 
The principal ports of the latter will be between 50 
and 1800 miles nearer to New York than to San Fran- 
cisco. 

These regions of South America have great, but un- 
developed natural resources, together with a sparse 
population. The canal will bring them in intimate 
commercial contact with the richest and most densely 
populated portions of our own country. For South 
America is our natural market. The same is true of 
Central America and Mexico. The problem for us to 
solve is, how to utilise this great market. The time 
has arrived when the task must be undertaken in good 
earnest. It is one of the neglected markets, and we 

162 



South America Our Natural Market 163 

have seen in preceding parts of this book that our 
commercial efforts will have to turn hereafter to such 
markets, for they are not alone the most promising in 
every sense, but we must have several strings to our 
bow. A European continental tariff-union, pointed 
chiefly at us, can scarcely be regarded any longer as a 
mere phantom. Such ideas are necessarily of slow 
growth, and the difficulties standing in the way of 
realising this particular one are very great; many 
deem them insurmountable. To bring under one hat 
the divergent economic and commercial interests of a 
group of countries differing from each other so much 
in resources and politics, seems a herculean undertak- 
ing. But the idea has taken firm root in the European 
mind. 

Germany and Austria have so far been the backbone 
of this movement. The Austrian minister of foreign 
affairs, Count Golushovski, has for years been advo- 
cating such a commercial trust against the United 
States. In Germany, both Count Posadowsky, the im- 
perial home secretary, and Count Buelow, the chancel- 
lor of the empire, have followed in Golushovski's foot- 
steps. But in Italy and in France, too, this idea has 
found lodgment in the minds of many public men and 
economists. Most significant in this connection was 
the agricultural congress which met, some time ago, in 
Rome. Its main purpose was to devise concerted ac- 
tion by continental Europe to avert the flood of 
American agricultural imports. True, nothing came 
of it. This country has some very good friends in 
Italy, and one of them, Prinetti, sometime financial 
minister of the kingdom, staunchly opposed all pro- 
jected anti-American measures. The disunion of the 
delegates, and their inability to agree on steps which 



164 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

would have been of equal benefit to all the nations 
concerned, did the rest. 

But the mere fact that such an international con- 
gress was held shows what strength this movement, 
detrimental to American interests, has already gained. 
We may look for increased agitation throughout 
Europe in this direction, and the seemingly irrecon- 
cilable differences which now divide the advocates of 
the exclusion of American products may in the end be 
overcome. In any case, serious danger threatens us 
in that quarter. 

Glutted American markets will, therefore, do well 
to turn to South and Central America as one of the 
main fields of American expansion. Roughly speak- 
ing, Latin-Americans number 60,000,000. Their 
natural increase is one of the greatest in the world, 
varying between 1.5 and 2 per cent, annually. In ad- 
dition to that there is immigration — Italian, German, 
Portuguese, Spanish, from the West Indies, and from 
this country and Great Britain, though it may be well 
to note that these last two items have so far been 
numerically small. For some parts of South America, 
particularly Argentina, the southern part of Brazil, 
Uruguay, Chile, and Venezuela, the immigration 
figure is quite large. For Argentina, for instance, it 
is computed at 600,000 within the past ten years. 

It may reasonably be expected that in their totality 
these countries will soon present a market as large 
and far more profitable than any one of the chief 
countries of Europe. After the completion of the 
Panama Canal a large part of the rapidly increasing 
energy and capital of the United States can hardly fail 
to be applied to the development of South America. 

The general trend of migration has hitherto largely 



South America Our Natural Market 165 

been on lines of latitude. There were good reasons for 
this. There has been abundant unoccupied land to 
the westward, and movement east to west, or west to 
east, finds less variation in climate and general con- 
ditions than a similar movement in a northerly or 
southerly direction. There is now exhaustion of free 
arable land, save in rather inhospitable districts, such 
as Canada and Siberia. We may look, therefore, 
henceforth to an increased immigration southward. In 
this connection it may be well to remember that the 
proximity of the Andes to the Pacific coast affords a 
choice of altitude which, together with the great extent 
of latitude, should make it possible to find almost any 
desired climate along the western coast of South 
America, matching that of a given latitude on the 
Atlantic coast of North America. Certainly, Ameri- 
cans who have settled in Peru and Chile find the 
climate quite congenial. 

Together with American commercial expansion in 
South America there will probably be intertwined po- 
litical expansion, though as to the precise form that 
may take opinions will differ. Possibly, indeed very 
likely, the form will be something analogous to that 
taken in the case of Cuba, a sort of political protection 
extended to the weaker sisters, involving control of 
their foreign affairs and a more or less close tariff- 
union. 

Doubtless a number of facts speak at present against 
such a consummation. As yet, the Anglo-American is 
not sympathetic to the Latin-American; the term 
gringo is most readily applied by the latter to their 
northern brethren. This feeling of dislike in the 
bosom of the Latin-American is compounded of va- 
rious elements. There is a good deal of fear in it, aside 



1 66 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

from a deep racial antipathy. The immense superi- 
ority of the northern American in material respects, as 
well as in most of the features of intellectual life, is 
grudgingly acknowledged by the people of South 
America. The adventurous spirit that has taken hold 
of the people of the United States since the war with 
Spain fills them with deep dread and angry forebod- 
ings. They think, and perhaps justly, that there are no 
bounds to our ambition. In short, they darkly antici- 
pate annexation by this country. 

In this connection it is curious to observe that even 
the Monroe doctrine, though largely conceived, in 
the first place, to safeguard Latin-American inde- 
pendence, has now become a perfect bugaboo to these 
very people. They scent danger to their liberties from 
its application. 

Let us mention just a few points in corroboration 
of this. Though Cuba had enjoyed in her long 
struggle against Spanish tyranny the undivided sym- 
pathies of all other Latin-American countries, the 
latter at once turned flatly around and showed a fel- 
low-feeling wondrous kind for Spain during the 
course of, and long after, our war with her. The same 
" Spanish butcher," upon whom the whole Latin- 
American press had for years heaped maledictions, 
suddenly became an outraged and injured cousin. 
There spoke the kinship of race, of course. But inter- 
mingled with it all was fear and hatred of the Yankee. 
The Acre incident will be remembered — in itself a 
petty one. But at once Brazil and Bolivia smelt 
smoke and fire. To them the incident meant another 
dark scheme of the cunning Yankee to acquire terri- 
tory and set up the starry banner right in the heart of 
South America. It took much conciliatory corre- 



South America Our Natural Market 167 

spondence from Washington to smooth the ruffled 
feathers of those two peoples. 

Although this country took Venezuela under its 
wing, in 1903, when Germany and Great Britain sent 
their joint punitive expedition to her harbours with an 
eye to enforce payment of delinquent debts, it was 
almost amusing to notice how the people of that vast 
and ambitious, but very backward and financially im- 
potent, republic thanked us for our trouble. The 
Venezuelan press, in fact, the press of all Latin- 
America, went from one extreme to the other during 
that period. One day they spoke of us as their arch- 
enemy, and the next as their deliverer. Gratitude and 
abuse formed an inextricable jumble. The secret 
understanding effected of late between Central and 
South American countries, with this country as ob- 
jective, is another illustration of their unbounded fears. 
Argentina took the lead in this matter, though she, 
surely, seemed least in danger from our alleged 
Machiavellian policy. Practically, this understanding 
need not frighten us, for it died a-borning. In the 
face of the large number of mutual jealousies, ques- 
tions of disputed frontier and all sorts of other quarrels 
which form so interesting and unfathomable a part of 
South American internal politics, an offensive and 
defensive alliance between the various republics would 
not hold good for any length of time. 

Our latest little misunderstanding with Colombia, 
due to the separation of Panama from that federative 
republic, again illustrated the existence of latent 
Latin-American animosities. As we know, it all 
ended in smoke. Colombia's neighbours helped her 
with an ocean of printer's ink against the hated gringo, 
but that was as far as they went. 



1 68 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

Nevertheless, these are all straws which show how 
the wind blows. The day seems still far distant when 
the South American will love us. But that need not 
seriously trouble us. The Latin-American intensely 
dislikes all foreigners. That does not hinder him from 
doing a very flourishing trade with Great Britain and 
Germany. This trade, or at least a very large portion 
of it, might as well be ours. Let us look at the amount 
of Latin-American foreign trade. 

Mexico, our neighbour to the south, has been making 
rapid progress in all things under the long and wise 
administration of President Porfirio Diaz. Her ex- 
ports now amount to about $98,900,000, and her 
imports to $75,900,000. The American share of it 
amounts to $36,840,206 in imports, far larger than 
either the British or German. She takes from us ma- 
chinery, manufactures, both textile and leather, as well 
as railroad-building materials, etc. We have built her 
railroads and we exploit a good share of her mines. 
Mexico forms for the moment the best American field 
in all Latin-America. This is very largely owing to 
her nearness to us. But Mexico might, when our 
chances are properly pushed, take up treble the 
amount of our present imports. She is a large coun- 
try, with some 14,500,000 population, the density 
equalling that of our own country, and during her 
long internal peace she has shown a very rapid 
increase. 

Nicaragua, one of the smaller republics, with an 
export of only about $3,046,825, and an import of 
$1,273,185 (half of the exports being coffee), is, 
nevertheless, another promising field for American en- 
terprise. In fact, there are many American enter- 
prises flourishing on Nicaraguan soil. Her climate is 



South America Our Natural Market 169 

salubrious, and we may expect there an expanding 
trade. 

Honduras, likewise small, and with less than half a 
million of population, offers fair chances for our trade. 
Her imports, in 1902, were $1,667,440, and exports, 
$2,468,141, whereof 65 per cent, of the imports and 
66 per cent, of the exports came from the United 
States. 

Guatemala, another of the small Central American 
countries, has an area of 48,290 square miles, with a 
population of 1,647,300. Its foreign commerce is 
relatively large, exports (nearly all coffee) being $9,- 
031,507, and imports, $4,285,000. Of the exports 
about one-fourth goes to the United States, and about 
one-eighth of the imports are derived from there. 
Guatemala has no industry. That country has been 
almost entirely neglected by us. 

Costa Rica measures only 18,400 square miles, with 
316,738 inhabitants. Nevertheless, she shows rela- 
tively high figures for foreign commerce, namely, $4,- 
413,333 in imports, and $5,659,695 in exports, the 
latter being chiefly coffee and bananas. Her imports 
are largely dry goods, hardware, and foodstuffs. Of 
these, 54 per cent, came from the United States. 

Colombia stands on a different plane. She has al- 
most 4,600,000 population, with a territory which is 
as large as our Far West, and which presents a great 
variation of climatic and soil conditions. Relatively 
speaking, her foreign trade is undeveloped. Exports 
amount to about $9,600,000, and imports to $5,500,- 
000. Her articles of export are coffee, precious metals, 
ores, tobacco, hides, drugs, ivory, cocoa, rubber, cattle, 
and dye woods. Imports are mostly textile tissues, 
iron and steel products, wool, cotton, and " notions." 



170 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

Her main trade has all along been with Great Britain, 
the United States, and Germany. The United States 
exported to Colombia, in 1903, $4,246,762 worth of 
goods, taking $2,923,611 of Colombia's products. 
Considering her financial resources, Colombia's for- 
eign debt is excessive, being more than $13,500,000. 
The interest charge on that is a great drain on her 
resources. At present there is a strong anti-American 



SOUTH AMERICA 

(Northern Half) 

SCALE OF MILES 




feeling prevailing, due to the Panama imbroglio. 
Nevertheless, Colombia forms an inviting field for 
American capital and trade. She is very rich in 
natural sources of wealth, awaiting only capital and 
technical knowledge to exploit them. 

Salvador is the smallest of Central American re- 
publics, but she has almost a million of inhabitants, 
and both her exports and imports show respectable 
figures, namely, $4,110,260 (of which coffee, about 
$3,000,000), and $2,647,385, respectively. This 
country also has been quite neglected by us. 

The larger part of Colombia's territory is in South 



South America Our Natural Market 171 

America proper, stretching far inland. Venezuela is 
one of her neighbours. That country has nearly the 
size of Colombia, and something over 2,500,000 popu- 
lation. Her foreign trade is quite large: exports, 
$18,624,775, largely coffee; imports, $10,724,750. 
Her imports consist in cotton goods, woollen stuffs, 
linen, hardware, and manufactures of iron and steel. 
This trade has been largely in the hands of Great 
Britain and Germany. Of Venezuela's exports, how- 
ever, the United States, in 1903, took $5,312,954. 
The railroads built there, the few manufacturing es- 
tablishments, the street railways, etc., have been 
creations of British and German enterprise. Vene- 
zuela's foreign and internal debt amounts to a round 
$45,000,000. It is almost altogether the result of 
governmental wastefulness. Due to the arrangement 
effected of late with some of Venezuela's chief foreign 
creditors, by reason of which a large part of her cus- 
toms duties ( forming the main revenue of the govern- 
ment) will not be available for her uses, a period of 
financial depression has set in. The future holds, 
however, much in store for Venezuela. She is excep- 
tionally rich in almost every form of natural wealth, 
and with a saner government, and better development 
of her material resources, she could soon be brought to 
a very prosperous condition. Americans have so far 
avoided Venezuela. Advantage ought to be taken by 
us of the prevailing deep dislike of European nations, 
increased as it was by the events of 1903. 

Bolivia is a field which promises good returns to 
American enterprise. After the completion of the 
Panama Canal it will be readily accessible to us, and 
the geographical advantages so far enjoyed by the 
European nations will then be in our favour. Her area 



172 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

is 703,400 square miles, and this immense territory in 
1900 had only a population of 1,816,271. Much of 
Bolivia is mountainous, and possesses a climate con- 
genial to Americans from the North. Her great 
natural resources are almost entirely undeveloped. 
Her revenue is derived largely from customs duties, 
silver mining, rubber exports, patent and stamp 
duties. Her foreign debt is very small, barely $3,000,- 
000. Her only drawback is her interior position, she 
having no seaport. But she has the Amazon and 
several of its tributaries as navigable arteries for her 
trade. Bolivia's foreign trade is surprisingly large. 
Her exports amount to $9,947,193, being very largely 
silver ($5,340,500), tin ($2,797,500), bismuth, 
copper, etc. Her imports are largely manufactured 
articles; they figure up to $5,114,444. She has only 
640 miles of railroad. 

Of greatest importance to our prospective South 
American trade is Brazil. In territory, she exceeds 
the United States (leaving out Alaska) by some 200,- 
000 square miles. In fertility of soil and variety of 
products she fully equals us. Her climatic conditions 
range from the torrid and tropical to the temperate and 
bracing zone. With an enormous coast line along the 
Atlantic, she possesses the mighty Amazon and a 
number of its chief tributaries. Her population, how- 
ever, is still quite sparse, for her 18,000,000 mean only 
a density per square mile of 4.5. 

The revenues of the Brazilian federal government, 
in 1903, amounted to $40,967,000 (from customs du- 
ties), and 248,018,000 milreis in paper, the latter from 
internal taxes, etc. The expenditures were just within 
the mark. Brazil has a very large foreign and internal 
debt. The latter has been partly consolidated, this por- 



South America Our Natural Market 173 

tion amounting to 570,362,000 milreis, while the float- 
ing debt is still 187,949,000 milreis. 

While the foreign trade of Brazil is very large, it is 
matter of regret that this nation has so far secured but 
about 14 to 16 per cent, of the import trade. For 
1 90 1, the total exports and imports of the country were 
almost 1,300,000,000 milreis, the latter coin being at 
present worth about 24 cents. Of this total amount, 




the United States exported to Brazil in the same year 
$11,663,119 worth, and it imported from there $70,- 
643,574. In the year following, 1902, our exports had 
declined to $10,391,130, while our imports from there 
had risen to $79,391,130. Of our Brazilian imports, 
in 1901, the most important was coffee, $45,015,836; 
rubber, $16,919,707; sugar, $5,347,503; hides and 
skins, $2,061,779. Of our exports in that year, wheat 
flour figured with $2,687,786, and petroleum, $2,- 
136,982. 



174 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

It will, therefore, be seen that while the tropical 
commodities we import from Brazil are a direct com- 
plement to our own products, we have so far neglected 
to induce Brazil to purchase of us the many things in 
which we excel, and which she absolutely needs. 
These things she now takes almost altogether from 
European nations, particularly Great Britain, Germany, 
and France. These countries supply her with steel 
and iron manufactures, cotton goods and other stuffs 
for wear, and the other innumerable articles turned 
out by a highly developed industry. There are, of 
course, special reasons for this, the chief one being 
the greater proximity of Brazilian harbours to Europe, 
the far older commercial relations with those countries, 
and the presence in Brazil of large numbers of British, 
German, and French trading firms. Another reason is 
to be found in the German and British steamer lines 
regularly visiting Brazilian ports. The last two points 
mentioned are susceptible of change. 

The Brazilian merchant marine is not very con- 
siderable. It consists at present of 228 steamers, with 
a tonnage of 91,465, and of 343 sailing vessels, their 
tonnage being 76,992. In 1901, the principal Bra- 
zilian ports were visited by 14,360 vessels, of an ag- 
gregate tonnage of 11,107,480. 

The unfavourable geographic position, so far as 
Brazilian harbours are concerned, will, of course, not 
be affected by the Panama Canal. That fact will con- 
tinue to vex us. But the land route into Brazil will 
hereafter be open to us. The western half of Brazil 
lies not far removed from the Pacific. It is now being 
opened up by railroads. So far, Brazil has 9718 miles 
of railroad in operation, and 4989 miles building. 
Another 71 10 miles is projected, and within five years 



South America Our Natural Market 175 

from now several main lines will traverse this western 
domain of Brazil, while a number of branch lines will 
tap them. American capital at this juncture could be 
very profitably employed in constructing a number of 
additional railroads, especially lines which would give 
more ready access to the western portion of Brazil, 
furthering immigration there, and developing the im- 
mense resources of that country, now lying almost 
completely fallow. These lines ought to connect with 
Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, and would thus supply reg- 
ular lines of steam and sailing vessels, doing traffic be- 
tween our ports and those on the western coast of 
South America, with paying freight and cargoes. 

Indeed, when the Panama Canal has once been 
built, Brazil will become probably the finest field in all 
South America for American commercial expansion. 
Her population, too, is less hostile to us. For many 
years our diplomatic and political relations with Brazil 
have been extremely friendly. There is no reason 
under the sun why we should not capture one-half of 
the entire Brazilian foreign trade. As it is, we are 
her best customer, outdistancing even Britain. With 
proper encouragement shown to Brazilians, and 
with vastly increased facilities of communication for 
our trade, she in her turn ought to become — and prob- 
ably would become — one of our own best customers, 
for she has great and growing need of all our manu- 
factures. 

Chile is generally considered the most progressive of 
the South American countries. She has a population 
of 3,500,000, and her territory forms a long and nar- 
row strip along the Pacific. In density of population 
she leads all her neighbours. Indeed, she leads in other 
respects. Her government is stable and sagacious, and 



176 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

in her various wars she has been successful. For so 
small a country, both her army and navy are large and 
efficient. Her foreign trade is, per head of population, 
the largest in South America. She exported, in 1902, 
saltpetre, copper, guano, precious metals, coal, and 
cereals to the amount of $68,309,965, and she imported 
(machinery, hardware, petroleum, textiles, etc.) al- 
together, $47,143,204. Her finances are settled, and 
her revenues and expenditures maintain a balance. If 
our Pacific coast were better developed, we should 
probably be doing a thriving trade with Chile. As it 
is, we sell to and buy from her very little. It is again 
Great Britain and Germany which are far in the lead 
of us. In 1902, we sold Chile $4,764,000 worth of 
goods, and bought of her $9,280,405. The present 
sea route around Cape Horn being shorter by several 
thousand miles for German and British vessels, our 
Atlantic emporiums are at a great disadvantage. The 
Panama Canal will bring Chile very close to us. Her 
commercial wants, as we have seen, are precisely those 
which we can best fill when the opportunities are 
equal. 

The sway of Peru extends over a territory nearly 
double the size of Chile's, and her population exceeds 
that of the latter by over 1,000,000. Though she has a 
fine coast line, she is not distinctly a maritime nation 
like Chile, and her harbours are few. Her trade rela- 
tions are far greater with the interior of South 
America, particularly Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, and 
Ecuador, than with foreign countries. However, her 
exports exceed $19,313,335, and her imports, $16,- 
517,295. Her main exports are minerals and sugar, 
the climate in a large portion of her territory being 
tropical, though tempered by sea winds. Her trade 



South America Our Natural Market 177 

with the United States is third on the list, and the 
reasons cited for Chile apply also to her. The canal 
will put us on a more than equal footing with England 
and Germany in commercially exploiting Peru. Her 
present imports are largely cotton goods and woollens, 
machinery, etc., in all of which we can compete. 

The Argentine Republic runs Chile a close second in 
the matter of progress and development of natural re- 
sources. Next to Brazil she owns the largest terri- 
tory in South America, one-third that of the United 
States. With a population of over 5,000,000, with a 
large coast line and a fine river system, with an 
equable and temperate climate, and a virgin soil sur- 
passing in fertility that of our Prairie states, the 
country could support at least five or six times the 
actual number of inhabitants. Her rise to prosperity is 
of very recent date. For several generations, internal 
strife ravaged her and hampered prosperity. 

Argentina and Brazil have both pursued for some 
time the same policy of encouragement to foreign im- 
migration. In Brazil it is the three southern provinces 
which have attracted most of these European settlers ; 
in Argentina it is the whole country that is being 
rapidly covered with a network of farms worked by 
immigrants, very largely Italians and men from 
Northern Spain. This immigration proceeds at a 
rather rapid rate. Within twenty years the total pop- 
ulation of Argentina has doubled. 

The capital of Argentina, Buenos Ayres, is the 
largest city in South America, having a population of 
840,000. In 1850, it had 20,000, and in 1880, 
250,000. 

The immense prairie lands of Argentina, together 
with a mild climate and abundance of water, make her 



178 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

the paradise of cattle-raising. Within her borders 
are grazing 22,000,000 head of cattle, a larger number 
than the whole immense Russian Empire can boast of, 
and there are 5,000,000 horses, and 77,000,000 goats. 
In consequence of this, her exports (amounting to 
$187,487,000) are largely derived from the cattle in- 
dustry, — wool, hides, live stock, canned meats, tallow, 
etc., amounting together to over $70,000,000 of her 
annual exports. Cereals are, however, the largest 
single item, exports in them figuring up to $73,045,- 
000. The imports are almost wholly products of in- 
dustry, cotton goods, iron and steel wares, machinery, 
cloths, drugs, coal, wine, etc., altogether, some $113,- 
485,000. In exports and imports the United States, in 
1902, occupied only fifth place, with $13,303,504, and 
$10,037,576, respectively. 

After sundry financial depressions, the economic 
condition of Argentina is to-day satisfactory. She has 
about 10,000 miles of railroads in operation or in 
process of construction. In 1902, 12,917 vessels, with 
altogether 6,913,783 tons, cleared from Argentine 
harbours. The Argentine navy is next in size to the 
Brazilian. 

The foreign debt of Argentina is, however, very 
large, though now funded. It amounts to $321,732,- 
720. The revenues for 1902 were $71,991,000, while 
the expenditures were $3,000,000 less, including the in- 
terest charge on the national debt. 

Argentina's geographical position will continue to 
be rather unfavourable to us, even after the completion 
of the Panama Canal. She lies far to the south and 
east. But there are several railroad projects in the 
making, and after they have been realised, the vast 
western territory of Argentina will enjoy much 



South America Our Natural Market 179 

greater facilities of communication with the Pacific 
coast, and her products will thus become more readily 
available to us. In any case, Argentina's trade with us 
does not offer great prospects. It is otherwise as to 
the question of internal exploitation of her resources. 
This, as well as her foreign trade, has so far been 
largely in the hands of Britain, France, and Germany. 
There is good opportunity in Argentina for the in- 
vestment of American capital in all sorts of industrial 
enterprises, more particularly railroads, street railways, 
stockyards, and slaughter houses. 

The best of land in Argentina is still to be had at 
very low prices, even when comparing them with our 
Far West. This fact indicates another chance for 
American enterprise. 

Uruguay is a relatively small state, but it has a 
million of population, and very great natural advan- 
tages. Revenue and expenditures amount to $16,123,- 
921 and $16,124,324, respectively. It has a relatively 
large national debt. Her exports and imports figure 
up $29,400,000 and $24,000,000, respectively, exports 
being almost exclusively products of the cattle in- 
dustry, while imports are manufactured articles, 
largely derived from Great Britain and Germany. 
The United States (with about $4,000,000 exports 
and imports) is seventh on the trade list. Her internal 
development is in a state of rapid advance, and in that 
respect, similarly to Argentina, she offers a promising 
field to American capital. In 1902, 3915 vessels of 
altogether 4,139,320 tons cleared from Montevideo, 
her capital city. This city, like Buenos Ayres, is sit- 
uate at the mouth of the great La Plata River. 

Paraguay, with a larger territory than Uruguay, 
has a smaller population, and the prospects of her in- 



180 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

ternal development are not nearly so good. She has 
no ocean front, lying far inland, and hardly any navi- 
gable rivers. Her foreign trade, therefore, her rev- 
enues and expenditures, and everything else by which 
the wealth of the country is gauged, are small. 

Ecuador suffers likewise from a rather unfavourable 
geographical position, having only a very short ocean 
front, a torrid climate, and scarcely any railroads or 
other means of communication. With a territory of 
about 120,000 square miles, she has 1,500,000 in- 
habitants, and a fine capital city, Quito. Her revenues 
and expenditures are very small, and she has a national 
debt of $3,500,000. Her imports amount to $7,221,- 
492, and her exports to $9,053,019. Her principal 
article of export is cocoa. The trade relations be- 
tween Ecuador and the United States are scarcely 
worth mentioning. This, however, is likely to be 
changed by the completion of the canal, as Quito will 
then afford us easy access. 

It was pointed out before that the Panama Canal 
will once more give to the West Indies a commercial 
importance which is almost certain to involve politi- 
cal consequences. 

For several centuries, and until a comparatively re- 
cent time, this island world formed the principal 
source of tropical products. During the Napoleonic 
era, when England was shut out, by a ceaseless suc- 
cession of wars, from a large part of her continental 
trade, the West Indies furnished her with one-fourth 
of all her commerce. But misrule, about as vicious as 
ignorant tyranny could devise, rebellions and constant 
political changes, as well as the economic development 
of the Dutch East Indies and of British India, the rise 
of the beet-sugar industry, and other causes thrust the 



South America Our Natural Market 1 8 1 

West Indies from their former prominent place. West 
Indian commerce during the last half of the nineteenth 
century steadily declined, until now it is insignificant. 

The canal, however, will again focus a large part of 
the world's commerce in the Caribbean Sea. Towards 
its waters empty the mouths of the Amazon and the 
Mississippi. As natural tributaries to the canal, these 
two great rivers will pour their commerce and shipping 
through the Caribbean Sea. The islands in it will be- 
come once more important ports of call, and far up 
along these rivers trade will expand, towns will assume 
new commercial importance, and the horn of plenty 
will empty itself over this whole region. 

Under these circumstances it will become all-im- 
portant for us to secure political and commercial pre- 
ponderance in the West Indies. It will be necessary, 
for one thing, to put a final stop to outrageous mis- 
government that has been wasting and neglecting the 
rich resources of the second largest isle, at present 
divided under the name of Hayti and Santo Domingo. 
This island, under American rule, would become of 
immense importance, both economic and political. 

The whole island comprises a territory of about 
two-thirds the size of Cuba, and of about as large a 
population, namely, 1,500,000. Hayti is a French- 
speaking negro republic, while Santo Domingo has the 
same nominal form of government (but in reality 
nothing better than a military despotism), being set- 
tled by Spanish-speaking negroes. These two so- 
called republics have been a political anomaly for many 
years, and the establishment of American rule there 
would be warmly welcomed by the whole civilised 
world. The island is fertile in all tropical products, 
in a higher degree than Cuba. Under the prevailing 



1 82 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

political conditions imports and exports are less than 
one-tenth of what they might be. The main products 
of the island are coffee, tobacco, cocoa, and sugar. 

The matter of immigration to South America was 
briefly touched on before. The southern provinces of 
Brazil (enjoying a moderate and very healthy climate, 
adapted to European settlers), the whole of Argen- 
tina and Uruguay have thus far been the main fields 
to which this European immigration has been directed. 
Without question it will do much to further a more 
rapid development of these neglected countries. The 
Pacific coast of South America, for a variety of 
reasons, seems, however, best adapted to draw here- 
after the surplus of our own population. With two 
score of thousands annually migrating from our Prairie 
states across the Canadian border in search of free, 
fruitful arable land, and with the practical exhaustion 
of tillable government lands in our Far West, we may 
look hereafter for American emigration to suitable dis- 
tricts along the southern slope of the Pacific. Such 
emigration will probably set in even before the com- 
pletion of the Panama Canal, but after that event it is 
likely to proceed at accelerated pace and in greater 
volume. In those countries — Chile, Peru, Bolivia, 
etc. — there is still abundance of the finest land to be 
had, as a gift or for a song, and once sturdy Anglo- 
Saxon immigration has turned that way, we may look 
for most important results, economic as well as 
political. 

Uneasiness has occasionally been felt in this country 
at the large German immigration in South America, 
more particularly in Brazil and Argentina. This dis- 
quiet has been due less to the fact in itself than to its 
possible ultimate consequences. The belief has been 



South America Our Natural Market 183 

promulgated, now and then, both by American writers 
and officials, and by those of the Latin-American coun- 
tries spoken of, that it is Germany's final design 
to gain a political foothold in South America ; in other 
words, to found there a new colonial empire. Against 
this the Monroe doctrine has been invoked in advance. 

There can be small question that to establish such a 
colonial empire on South American soil is the ardent 
desire of a great portion of the German people. The 
German press frequently recurs to this idea, pointing 
out the great need of German colonial expansion — 
their population increasing at the rate of almost a 
million annually — and the great commercial advan- 
tages to be derived from the carrying out of such a 
project. The German government, however, has al- 
ways disclaimed any such ulterior designs in promot- 
ing the current of German emigration towards Brazil. 

Certainly, next to this country, South America holds 
the largest percentage of people of German blood. To 
confine our point to only one Brazilian province, that 
of Rio Grande do Sul, the facts appear to be these: 
there is a German population numbering 600,000; 
that means 40 per cent, of the total population of the 
province. They live there in colonies, forming, prac- 
tically, autonomous commonwealths, and neither inter- 
marry nor mingle with the native Brazilian element. 
They preserve their language and customs intact. The 
schools and churches they found use German as the 
chief vehicle of expression, although Portuguese (the 
language of the country) is also taught. A number of 
German consuls reside at the chief centres of popula- 
tion within this German-settled province, and they 
naturally assist in keeping the purely German idea 
alive. The German-Brazilian press is influential and 



184 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

ably edited. There are several societies in Germany 
whose sole purpose it is to direct German emigrants to 
these settlements in Brazil. One of these societies has 
as president the brother of the German empress, Duke 
Guenther of Schleswig-Holstein. Several other so- 
cieties exist in Germany, which, both as a patriotic and 
commercial enterprise, have purchased immense tracts 
of land in the province spoken of — Rio Grande do 
Sul — as well as in the neighbouring one of Santa Cata- 
rina. These societies, too, have made special agree- 
ments for cheap transportation with German steamer 
lines, and with the Brazilian government and local 
authorities, for the parcelling out of these lands to new 
settlers from Germany. 

This must be a paying business, for last year the 
older societies of this nature handled some 9000 of 
such settlers. But a new society of this kind, the Rio 
Grande Settlement Association, came into being in 
Berlin a few months ago. This new society has pur- 
chased 1,700,000 acres of fine farm lands in that prov- 
ince, and proposes to settle there 17,000 German 
farmers and peasants, taking payment in instalments, 
and fitting out each family with the necessary imple- 
ments, building material, seed corn, etc. This same 
concern, under a concession from the provincial 
government, means to build a railroad, 160 miles in 
length, along the Taquary River for the wants of its 
settlers. 

The natural rate of increase of these Germans set- 
tled in Brazil is phenomenal. Families of twelve or 
fifteen are nothing exceptional, and about eight or nine 
seems to be the average. The death rate is extremely 
low. Within the space of five years or less, a fair de- 
gree of prosperity is achieved by the newly arriving 



South America Our Natural Market 185 

settler. In the provincial chambers of the three Bra- 
zilian provinces containing the largest percentage of 
Germans, namely, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Cata- 
rina, and Sao Paulo, German delegates exert con- 
siderable influence. 

This is a mere statement of the facts in the case; 
inferences may be drawn by the reader. But in any 
event, the Germans in Brazil are not likely of their 
own accord to aim at the creation of a state within a 
state, or at complete political severance from Brazil. 
It would be another question, of course, if, at some 
future time, on one pretext or another, Germany her- 
self should think it worth while to take a hand in 
the matter. There have been signs of late of the pos- 
sibility of disruption within the present federative 
republic of Brazil. The bond holding it together 
is much more loosely tied than is the case in this 
country. Rio Grande do Sul on several occasions has 
broken away from Brazil, and for some length of time 
maintained her political independence. Her economic 
needs differ from those of the remainder of Brazil, and 
a strong separatist sentiment is alive there. Taking 
all these considerations into account, there is the strong 
possibility that political complications between Brazil 
and Germany may at some time arise on the subject of 
safeguarding the interests of the large and constantly 
growing German settlements in Rio Grande do Sul. 
But, after all, this is only a possibility. 

Here we have, then, a South and Central American 
foreign trade, amounting altogether, according to the 
latest available statistics, to something over $1,800,- 
000,000, exports and imports. This is not taking into 
account Cuba or any of the possessions of foreign 
powers, ourselves included (Porto Rico). And yet 



1 86 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

even this last unconsidered fragment of trade, the 
one with the Antilles and with Guyana, attains a con- 
siderable figure. The aggregate foreign trade of the 
countries and islands to the south of us can be com- 
puted, roughly speaking, at considerably more than 
$2,000,000,000. Of this trade we have, in exports to 
Central America, $49,234,650; Mexico, $36,840,206; 
South America, $40,728,432; altogether, $126,803,- 
288, which is but $10,000,000, more than our exports 
to Canada alone. This is one-half of Britain's entire 
foreign trade; about two-thirds of Germany's foreign 
trade; two-thirds of our own foreign trade, and more 
than the entire foreign trade of France. 

What have we done to secure this trade ? Or, if not 
the whole, at least our fair share of it? Practically, 
we have none nothing. And, as markets do not come, 
but Have to be sought out and conquered by hard work, 
wisely directed energy, much patience, and the previous 
expenditure of capital, the consequence has been that 
our portion of the trade with this immense and fa- 
voured region is ridiculously small. 

Some of the disadvantages we have been labouring 
under are of our own doing or spring from our own 
omissions. Consular reports have enlightened us on 
this subject. Latin-Americans have a good deal of 
pride. They expect to be addressed in their own 
tongues, Spanish or Portuguese, by those who wish 
to sell them their goods. The Germans do it, their 
commercial export schools in Hamburg and elsewhere, 
as well as their trade high schools, teaching them these 
languages thoroughly ; Englishmen, as a rule, are still 
ignorant of any tongue but their own. This accounts, 
in part, for the fact that Great Britain has lost to 
Germany much of her trade in those countries. 



South America Our Natural Market 187 

Americans, too, to do a profitable trade with Spanish- 
Americans, must learn Spanish. Another point: we 
must learn to accommodate ourselves better to these 
people when dealing with them. They have their pe- 
culiarities of race and custom, and they need to be 
humoured. The English disregard that, and as long as 
they were the sole masters of Latin-American com- 
merce, their customers had to put up with it. But 
this is another reason why the Germans, more recent 
arrivals on the field, have cut so much into British 
trade. We are inclined to commit the same error; let 
us avoid it. Goods ought to be put up, shipped, trans- 
ported, and delivered, to meet the requirements of 
local conditions. In that respect again the Briton has 
consistently sinned, and is sinning to-day. So is the 
American. Accompanying circulars ought to be in 
Spanish or Portuguese, and weights, measures, coins, 
and distances quoted ought to be those of the country 
to which the circulars are addressed. Goods ought not 
to be so bulky as to render transportation on the backs 
of mules, perhaps over steep mountain paths, impos- 
sible or very difficult. In many cases British or 
American goods, on their arrival in port, have to be 
repacked at great inconvenience and expense, before 
they are fit for transportation inland. 

At present, all through Latin-America, means of 
communication are still very insufficient, either by 
rail or water. The roads of these countries, too, are 
for the most part in wretched condition. The Ameri- 
can exporter must make allowance for these deficien- 
cies. We need more American steamer lines to South 
and Central America; also, a far larger sailing fleet. 
Greater facilities in this respect create trade where it 
does not yet exist. We have by no means recognised 



1 88 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

the intrinsic possibilities of this great market ; else, we 
should probably have bestirred ourselves. 

The greatest of our present disadvantages, though, 
is a geographical one, South America lying far to the 
east, so that its whole eastern coast, and even its 
western are nearer to European nations than to us. 
We have seen that this disadvantage at least, the de- 
cisive one in close competition between well-equipped 
nations, will disappear forever with the completion 
of the Panama Canal. Let us hope that thereafter a 
great volume of American export trade to South 
America being assured, the slighter disadvantages 
spoken of before will likewise disappear. 

After all, the Latin-American is a man with whom 
it is more easy to deal than with many foreigners. He 
has, as a rule, a fair share of commercial uprightness, 
though he is " slow pay." It will not do to hurry him, 
and that is one more point which American mer- 
chants must take into account. He demands, and re- 
ceives from our competitors, rather long credit. Ul- 
timately, he pays his score. He is fond of the good 
things of this life, which is a very important point in 
the case of a prospective customer. Altogether, there 
is no valid reason why we should not secure, after the 
completion of the canal, the great bulk of his import 
trade. The canal once dug, our advantage in a com- 
petitive race with Europe will be immense from the 
start, and it will grow with every day. The canal will 
open up to our rapidly growing coast navigation the 
whole of the western shore of America, south of Cali- 
fornia, and this vast territory, including the coast of 
Mexico and Central America, is largely unexploited in 
the commercial sense, to this day. It is, in brief, an- 
other virgin market awaiting us. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE PAN-AMERICAN RAILWAY 

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam is not to be caught nap- 
ping. The most important advance work for the expan- 
sion of our trade in Central and South America that is 
being done now is the building of the Pan-American 
Railway. From the rate at which this great work is 
proceeding it seems certain that it will be completed 
several years before the Panama Canal is to be thrown 
open to the commerce of the world. This railway, 
connecting with the various railway systems of the 
United States, will run, in almost a straight line, 
through Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras. 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, 
Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, thus 
affording a grand trunk line anywhere from the border 
of Canada to the southernmost end of South America. 

This project, of course, is not of very recent date. 
It was mapped out and strenuously advocated as long 
ago as the days when Blaine was secretary of state, 
early in the eighties. It was an integral part of his 
Pan-American policy, and the Pan-American congress 
which at that time met in Washington indorsed the 
plan in principle. But from theory to practice is often 
a long way, and it proved so in this case. Practically, 
nothing was done until 1900. Then the Inter-Conti- 
nental Railway Commission surveyed the entire route. 
Next, at the second International Conference of 

189 



190 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

American States, held at the City of Mexico, during 
the winter of 1901-02, a resolution was adopted by the 
delegates from the various states represented, indors- 
ing the plan outlined by the railway commission. This 
resolution was preceded by a very thorough discus- 
sion and by a minute statement of facts showing, (1) 
the existing lines or spurs of railroad that would fit in 
with the general plan of the Pan-American Railway, 
and (2) the lines to be built to fill up the gaps, the 
length of these gaps, the cost and engineering diffi- 
culties to be met, and the amount of appropriations, 
available or prospective, which would fall to the share 
of each South or Central American government. A 
binding agreement was then reached for the construc- 
tion (or, in a sense, the completion) of a continuous 
line of railroad, fairly homogeneous in character, and 
of equal width of track, that will permit, within the 
space of a few years hence, uninterrupted passenger 
and freight traffic along the line of the two con- 
tinents. 

Within the past two years much work has been done, 
both in Central and South America, in the line indi- 
cated. President Roosevelt appointed Charles M. 
Pepper, an able and energetic man, as commissioner to 
supervise the carrying out of the resolution adopted at 
the City of Mexico conference, and this official has been 
greatly instrumental in helping the task along. 

At this writing the actual status of the whole work 
is as follows : 

Actual construction work is being done on railroads 
in Mexico as far as the border of Guatemala, and from 
the terminus of the present system of railroads in 
Argentina north to the frontier of Bolivia and beyond, 
thus closing the sections which were open at the time 



The Pan-American Railway 191 

the survey of the Inter-Continental Railway Commis- 
sion was made. 

There is a marked advance among the various coun- 
tries in settling boundary disputes and other questions 
at issue, thus eliminating causes of friction which re- 
tarded railway communication between them. 

A law was passed by Chile providing for the con- 
struction of the Transandean line, by means of which 
there will be direct railway communication between the 
Atlantic and Pacific coasts in the southern triangle of 
the continent. 

There has been legislation in Peru and in several 
other republics, while in the majority of the remaining 
states such legislation is under way, establishing 
guarantee funds and other elements of permanent rail- 
way policy. 

All this has received a strong impetus by the defi- 
nite settlement of the question of the construction of 
the Panama Canal, and by the taking of steps on our 
part insuring the rapid completion of this interoceanic 
waterway. There are signs that hereafter energy will 
be displayed in a far higher degree by the Central and 
South American republics in doing, each of them, their 
share in the completion of this Pan-American Railway. 

At present the mileage of railroads within the whole 
territory of South and Central America is : Argen- 
tina, 9126; Bolivia, 671; Brazil, 9718; Chile, 3254; 
Colombia, 457; Costa Rica, 178; Ecuador, 215; Gua- 
temala, 430; Honduras, 60; Mexico, 12,076; Nicara- 
gua, 400; Paraguay, 217; Peru, 1300; Salvador, 80; 
Uruguay, 1400; Venezuela, 800. Altogether, then, 
there are at present 39,582 miles of railroad in South 
and Central America, or, roundly, one-sixth of the 
mileage of the United States alone. This in itself 



192 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

shows what a promising field for railroad construc- 
tion is offered in that vast territory. 

Concerning the whole inter-continental route, the 
estimate of Colonel E. Z. Steever, a member of the 
engineering corps that made the survey, was that in 
1896 the distance over the general location from New 
York to Buenos Ayres was 10,471 miles. Of this he 
ascertained that 5186 miles were then in operation, 
leaving an interval of 5285 miles to be covered. From 
the time this report was made until the meeting of the 
conference at the City of Mexico, substantially nothing 
was done in closing up the links. But since then about 
450 miles have been filled in on the main locations, 
leaving 4835 miles to be constructed, if the route 
marked out by the inter-continental survey should not 
be varied. The probability of shortening the distance, 
to which the engineering corps called attention at the 
time of survey, seems to be verified by later surveys 
and locations in the interest of private enterprises. 
Thus, the distance over the Pan-American Railway 
from New York to Buenos Ayres, at first fixed at 10,- 
471 miles, may be reduced by 500 miles or more. 

Commissioner Pepper, in his latest report to Secre- 
tary Hay, gives a number of interesting details about 
the difficulties to be overcome in completing the Pan- 
American Railway. Incidentally he dwells on the 
growth of a feeling of reliance and confidence placed 
by the larger number of South and Central American 
republics in the good will of this country. 

Mexico, as the real junction point of the inter-conti- 
nental extensions with those railway systems which are 
already connected with the United States, is of pecu- 
liar interest in this matter. The Pan-American Rail- 
way, properly speaking, starts from a point on the 



The Pan-American Railway 193 

Mexican Tehuantepec Railroad, that point being San 
Geronimo, and thence runs northeast to the border of 
Guatemala, 260 miles. Of this distance, 172 miles are 
still to be built. The Mexican government pays a sub- 
sidy to the company constructing this road of $12,000 
(in Mexican silver), for each kilometre built, or $3,- 
816,000 for the whole length. By the terms of the con- 
cession the road must be finished on September 11, 
1907, but the probability is that this date will be anti- 
cipated. 

Most of the countries of Central America have made 
the building of interoceanic or transverse lines the 
cardinal principle of their policy. This plan supple- 
ments the inter-continental project, because north and 
south lines form the backbone of the interoceanic 
system, and the greater progress that is made in con- 
structing railways from the Atlantic ports to those of 
the Pacific, the greater will be the encouragement to 
north and south roads, for which they will serve as 
feeders. 

The Panama Canal promises to help much in the 
construction of both longitudinal and transverse lines. 
The probability that the Panama railroad, in meeting 
the demands for supplying material and other con- 
struction work on the waterway, will be unable fully to 
provide for the international traffic which now fol- 
lows that route, indicates the utility of other lines be- 
tween the two oceans, while the food supplies that will 
be required show the necessity of increasing the present 
limited means of transportation from the interior of the 
region adjoining the isthmus. So far, however, the 
Central American states have been rather slow in 
availing themselves of the opportunities thus offered 
to their internal development. Several of their legis- 



1 94 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

lative bodies are now bestirring themselves to make up 
for lost time. 

As to South America, conditions are in a more ad- 
vanced state. Beginning at the far south, the lines 
of Argentina stretching northward furnish the most 
essential element of further extension. The present 
system of Argentina has been prolonged to Jujuy, 
about iooo miles distant from Buenos Ayres. Under 
'a treaty negotiated in December, 1902, the Argentine 
government is now building the Bolivian section of the 
Central Northern Railroad, from Jujuy to Tupiza. 
The same government will operate this whole line. 
The connecting link, Jujuy to Tupiza, a distance of 230 
miles, will meet there the Pan-American Railway. 
Once this section is completed, it is certain that the 
further extensions will be made through Bolivia, so 
that within a few years this section of the inter-con- 
tinental route, from the Argentine frontier on the 
south to Lake Titicaca and the border of Peru on the 
north, will be completed. 

The railway system of Chile is considerable for a 
country of relatively small size. Between 1840 and 
1850 this enterprising country already began building 
a railroad between Valparaiso and Santiago. Within 
the last year measures have been adopted which insure 
the union of Valparaiso on the Pacific, with Buenos 
Ayres on the Atlantic, by a tunnel piercing the Andes, 
known as the route of the Uspallata pass. This is the 
extension of the original system. When completed, 
Chile will be united with the Argentine railway direct, 
and will thus have the benefit of through connection 
with the lines extending northward. This will be the 
first railroad to cross the entire continent of South 
America in a direct line. The Argentine lines already 



The Pan-American Railway 195 

have been extended west, via Mendoza, to the boun- 
dary limit of Chile at the summit of the Cordilleras, 
passing through Puente del Inca to Las Cuevas. On 
the Chilean side this summit has yet to be pierced. 
The actual gap is only 29 miles, but the engineering 
difficulties are numerous and great. The summit 
there is 12,800 feet, but the railway will cross it by 
tunnels below the highest elevation. 

Bolivia has clearly recognised the importance to her 
development of the Pan-American Railway. The sec- 
tions to be formed in this line are now, some of them, 
surveyed, while others are already under construction. 
In this connection the settlement of the long-standing 
quarrel between Bolivia and Brazil over the Acre ter- 
ritory has greatly favoured Bolivia's ambition for 
wider railroad intercourse. The treaty between those 
two countries provides for a cash payment, within two 
years, of $10,000,000 by Brazil to Bolivia. The latter 
country will expend this sum for railroad purposes. 
By this means a through system will be provided from 
the Argentine border on the south to the Peruvian 
boundary on the north, thus forming the great midway 
artery of through railway communication between 
Buenos Ayres and Lima, as well as enlarging the 
means of commercial intercourse with the Amazon 
region of Brazil. 

The most significant railway movement that has 
taken place in many years is now in progress in Peru. 
The railroad extension from Oroya, the terminus of 
the line built by Henry Meiggs for the Peruvian gov- 
ernment, has been carried on to Cerro de Pasco, and 
the line was opened for traffic this present year. The 
route followed is almost precisely the one designated in 
the inter-continental survey. Primarily, this railroad 



196 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

was built to foster the development of the great copper 
deposits of the Cerro de Pasco region. 

In Ecuador the least progress of all has been made 
in railroad-building of late. But at present the project 
for connecting the capital, Quito, with the coast of 
Guayaquil has been advanced, and the road is now in 
operation as far as Guamote. Some 165 miles are 
still to be built before Quito is reached. 

In Colombia, not much more progress has been made. 
A general railroad law has been passed, however, 
which is in sympathy with the Pan-American project, 
and the surveys of the latter have been used. Cauca, 
the province bordering on the Pacific, is the one which 
will be traversed by the main trunk of the inter-conti- 
nental line. So far, only a short spur is in operation, 
between Buenaventura and Cali, a distance of 80 
miles. Its extension to Bogota in the near future is 
anticipated. There are large anthracite coal deposits 
in the Cali district, and a profitable traffic is assured 
from the outset. 

Brazil has a progressive railway policy, which looks 
forward to communication with the Andes when immi- 
gration and colonisation have advanced sufficiently in 
that direction to insure the rational exploitation of 
those vast and rich tropical regions. The plans for 
reaching the slopes of the Cordilleras, which would in- 
sure a junction with the main transcontinental line, 
are well matured. One means will be the joining to- 
gether of links to give through communication for 
northern Brazil to the navigable streams. In the 
growth of Brazilian railways the policies of the Federal 
government of that republic and of the various states 
composing it have been in harmony. This has helped 
in a closer union of the various railway systems, 



The Pan-American Railway 197 

though in so enormous a country there is necessarily 
disconnection. 

In proportion to population, Uruguay has the 
largest railway mileage of any of the South American 
republics, The relation of this country to the Pan- 
American railway and the South American railway 
systems is apparent by its geographical position with 
reference to Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Under 
the railroad law of 1884, one Uruguayan road runs 
from Montevideo toward the Uruguay River to join 
the Argentine lines, and on its completion through 
communication will be established with Bolivia and 
Peru. Another road ends at Asuncion, in Paraguay, 
and a junction with the inter-continental trunk line is 
thus established. There are two other lines, partially 
completed, which will shorten the time to points in 
Brazil, and which would form a section of the ultimate 
Atlantic-Pacific line between Pernambuco and Valpa- 
raiso. In the network of Uruguayan and Argentine 
railways there is lacking only a section of 22 miles to 
connect Uruguay with the Pan-American railway. 
When this section is built, there will be direct com- 
munication all the way from Montevideo to Jujuy, in 
northern Argentina. 

The situation of Paraguay in the heart of the South 
American continent makes it especially desirable for 
that country to be connected by railroads with its 
neighbours. The only railway in operation so far is 
from Asuncion to Villa Encarnacion, a distance of 
217 miles. An extension to Posadas is on the point of 
completion, and then Paraguay will have quick com- 
munication between the Plata and the Paraguay 
rivers. This will add greatly to the internal devel- 
opment of the country. This region will also be the 



198 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

location for a junction for the inter-continental trunk 
system and establishing communication between Uru- 
guay, the southern states of Brazil, part of Ar- 
gentina, Bolivia, and Peru. 

In his report to Mr. Hay, Commissioner Pepper 
makes this observation : " It is the opportunity for 
the United States to extend its commerce by encourag- 
ing railroad building in the republics which are its 
neighbours and friends, and which look to it for 
guidance. The benefits of this extended commerce 
will be enjoyed by all the nations of the three Amer- 
icas. The attitude of the respective governments, and 
their earnest desire for the increase of United States 
investments, have been declared with frankness and 
sincerity. They cannot be expected to bar them- 
selves completely from European capital, yet their pref- 
erence for North American investments and enter- 
prises is significant. Their policy, as the result of ex- 
perience, is to treat with reputable and legitimate com- 
panies or individuals. For capital of this character 
there is every encouragement, not only in the growing 
stability of the governments, but also in their ability to 
carry out their guarantees, and in their disposition to 
enact legislation which will meet reasonable re- 
quirements." 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE PACIFIC HEREAFTER 

The Pacific during the twentieth century will as- 
sume the importance which the Mediterranean had for 
the leading commercial nations of ancient times. 
Mediterranean means " midland." There, it meant 
Asia and Europe; here, it will mean Asia and 
America. From the Mediterranean the sceptre passed 
to the Atlantic, and now the time is ripe for the 
supremacy of that immense ocean of which the an- 
cients knew nothing, and of which we modern people 
as yet know so little. 

In the chain of events leading up to our own time, 
the exploitation of the Pacific stands for the culminat- 
ing one. It means the intimate joining of the youngest 
with the oldest nations, the union of the lusty West 
with the decrepit East. Whatever changes future 
cycles will bring about, the retracing of our road from 
east to west cannot be one of them. 

The cutting of the Panama Canal will be the last 
geographical event of the first magnitude. There are 
no more isthmuses the severing of which could shift 
the commerce of the world. Looking westward over 
the broad expanse of the Pacific, — from San Francisco, 
Seattle, Port Townsend, and Portland, across the 
waste of water to China and the intervening island 
world, — imperial possibilities lie before us. We believe 
that in that direction is to be found our heritage of 

1 99 



200 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

expansion. The strong hand of the younger branch 
of the Germanic family of nations is about to stretch 
forth and grasp those wonderful regions of the earth, 
firmly, though kindly. That, indeed, is the last chapter 
in the gospel of expansion. Through the Golden Gate 
we look out upon the Orient. The ruling power has 
ever passed to younger hands, to a race unspent and 
with the wine of enthusiasm in its veins. 

England reaped an immense advantage from the 
digging of the Suez Canal, far more than France, al- 
though French hands had done the work. The 
Panama Canal will transfer that advantage to the 
United States, with the all-important certainty that 
this advantage cannot again be transferred by any 
geographical cause. Therefore, the commercial su- 
premacy of the Pacific will be final. The nation hold- 
ing that supremacy will, so far as human foresight can 
discern, hold the supreme power on this globe. 

When the commercial and maritime drama of 
Europe was shifted from its stage of the Mediterra- 
nean to the Atlantic, those nations who had the front 
seats, got most out of it. They furnished the best-trained 
actors in the stirring scenes of exploration, colonisa- 
tion, and trade, and reaped the largest rewards. This 
was fundamentally brought about by the one fact of 
geographic location. The same principle must hold on 
the " ocean of the future." But in this case the de- 
velopment will come by means of exploiting the 
Pacific from the basis of the Atlantic. Therefore, 
those countries which have a foothold on both these 
oceans possess the vantage-ground ; their potential 
strength will be in proportion to the length and prox- 
imity of their two ocean frontages and the resource- 
fulness of the interior regions dominated by them, 



The Pacific Hereafter 201 

In some respects the Pacific affords by no means 
such fine opportunities for commercial development as 
did either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic. Except 
in its remote parts the Pacific is not studded with 
islands, as is the Mediterranean. From the whole west 
coast of America there are no stepping-stones invit- 
ing to a conquest of the Pacific. The nearest islands 
lie in midocean, 2000 miles off. In other respects, too, 
the natural conditions are not so inviting as in the case 
of the Atlantic. A narrow ocean, near-lying continents, 
remote watersheds, long navigable river systems, ac- 
cessible inland regions, a large back country to draw 
upon — that is the Atlantic field. A vast ocean, remote 
continents, a few unnavigable rivers, walls of moun- 
tain hugging the coast, an inaccessible interior, limited 
back country — that, as to its general features, is the Pa- 
cific field. That ocean, though thrice the size of the 
Atlantic, has a drainage basin less than half as large. 
In Australia and South America the mountains rise 
directly from the sea, and only short, plunging tor- 
rents erode their slopes, while all the extensive drain- 
age is in another direction. In the northern continents 
the watershed is 1000 miles or more inland, and 
thereby furnishes almost the whole drainage area of 
the Pacific. But this location of the divides does not 
mean navigable streams to the coast. Indeed, the 
character of our American Pacific rivers is most un- 
favourable for navigation. Those of Canada are 
scarcely better. We find on the whole Pacific coast of 
our continent but the Colorado, the Sacramento, the 
Columbia, the Fraser, and the Yukon rivers. Of them 
the Yukon alone, by sweeping around to the north of 
the coast range, affords a navigable course for steamers 
of light draught for 1370 miles to Forty Mile Creek; 



202 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

there the international boundary line of Canada and 
Alaska crosses the river. The nature of the country, 
however, together with the ice-bound conditions for 
most of the year, renders the Yukon of little commer- 
cial importance. 

Of far greater importance are the Asiatic rivers of 
the Pacific. The Amoor with its tributaries (especially 
the Shilka and Ussuri) furnishes hundreds of miles of 
navigable waterways. Owing to the northward bend 
which the Amoor makes before reaching the ocean, 
it discharges its waters into the Okhotsk Sea, however, 
and its port is frozen six months of the year. We 
know Russia's complaint on that score. The next 
great river, the Hoang Ho, though watering for hun- 
dreds of miles the great plain of eastern China, is 
shifting in its course and cannot be relied upon for 
navigation. 

The lordly Yang Tse alone is comparable to the 
great rivers of the Atlantic. It can be navigated by 
steamers and barges for iooo miles upwards, and it 
admits ocean-going vessels up to Han Kow, 630 miles 
from its mouth, where cargoes of tea and silk may be 
laden for America and Europe. Of the other Chinese 
rivers of importance, the Si Kiang and Me Kong are 
rendered practically useless for navigation by rapids. 

Therefore, of all the rivers flowing east and west 
into the Pacific, only the Yang Tse gives a good 
route of communication between the interior and the 
coast. That is why we find it lined with free ports all 
the way up from Shanghai and Chin Kiang to 
I Chang, 1000 miles inland. The Yang Tse, in fact, 
is the one valuable river adjunct of sea power in the 
whole Orient. It was because of this that the Briton 
early claimed it as his specific sphere of influence, a 



The Pacific Hereafter 203 

claim which has since been disallowed, not by Ger- 
many alone, but by the United States, and Russia as 
well. Both Germany and Russia have now important 
commercial interests along the whole navigable course 
of the Yang Tse. Both of them have consuls in the 
chief cities along this river, and German firms particu- 
larly are now more numerous and do apparently a 
larger trade than the British. The proceedings be- 
tween Germany and England during 1901 and 1902, 
and the compromise finally effected between them, 
show beyond doubt that England has relinquished her 
former pretension to absolute commercial supremacy 
along the Yang Tse. This feature of the case, how- 
ever, can only be advantageous to American interests, 
since practically it means the preservation of the 
" open door," and equal chances with the other powers 
for our future trade along that river. 

By reason of its long irregular coast line stretching 
through twenty-one degrees of latitude, the possession 
of the one really navigable river of the whole Pacific, 
its central geographic location within the temperate 
zone, and its large territory of enormous latent re- 
sources, China has a strong position on the Pacific. 
We have seen in another chapter that she, cut off for 
many hundreds of years from the quickening influ- 
ences of Western civilisation, has not profited by these 
great natural advantages. On the other hand, Russia's 
frontage on the Pacific is much reduced in value by its 
far-northern situation. Japan has central location, a 
long island base, and is possessed of the spirit of 
progress which makes her develop the maritime ac- 
tivity of her people at a wonderful rate. But Japan 
has a small area, and the base of her operations does 
not show great natural resources. She is, in fact, like 



204 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

England, forced to expand outwardly, and we find her 
to-day on a keen hunt for colonies and commercial 
strongholds outside her own home sphere. The British 
possessions in India, Australia, New Zealand, North 
Borneo, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Malacca, and nu- 
merous islands give to the home country a wide base in 
the Pacific. But the scattered location of these pos- 
sessions, their remoteness from the national centre of 
strength in the Atlantic, and also from the storm- 
centre — the northern part of Far Asia — together re- 
duce the value of her maritime strength in the Pacific. 

Australia, full of ambition, is nevertheless debarred 
from a great share of the Pacific hereafter, and this by 
reason of her lack of navigable rivers (the Murray 
being the only one, and even that being of slight im- 
portance), the sparseness of her population, her torrid 
climate, and a lack of sufficient rainfall. 

China, then, is the only power on the Asiatic shore 
of the Pacific which, by reason of her geographic con- 
ditions, might have attained political and commercial 
predominance there. But aside from the peculiar po- 
litical conditions which have prevented her from doing 
so, she lacks one essential, namely, contact with the 
Atlantic. 

The United States, everything considered, presents 
all the features requisite to achieve supremacy in the 
Pacific. This will be shown under a separate head. 

However, in spite of the fact that natural conditions 
in several aspects seem less promising on the Pacific 
than on the Atlantic, the former is the " coming 
ocean." Let us cite some of the reasons for this 
claim. 

Commerce depends, first, on population. Other 
things being equal, the greater the population the 



The Pacific Hereafter 205 

greater will be the commerce. Now, the present popu- 
lation of the lands bordering on the new Mediterra- 
nean is considerably in excess of 500,000,000, one- 
third of the population of this globe. If we include 
India, to which the commerce of the Pacific hereafter 
will have easy access, the above figure rises to more 
than 800,000,000, or one-half the entire human family. 

But this is the present population. In these lands on 
the Pacific there is room for an enormous expansion of 
the race. Indeed, though it is a fact easily explained, 
it seems singular at first sight that, with the single ex- 
ception of China, all the Pacific lands are but sparsely 
inhabited. Europe has a population of 109.2 to the 
square mile; Asia, 58.9; Africa, 15.7; North America, 
only 13.8; South America, 5.3; and Australasia, only 
1.4; Siberia is just about as sparsely peopled as 
Australasia. If the population of North and South 
America and of Australasia were one-half as dense as 
that of Europe, it would aggregate 923,000,000. 

The rain supply of the Old World is but scant, while 
there is an abundance of it on our hemisphere. As a 
consequence, the greatest river systems are here, and 
the greatest deserts there. Geographers find as much 
arable land in America as in Europe, Asia, and Africa 
combined, namely, about 10,000,000 square miles. 
This statement has been endorsed by as great an au- 
thority as the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the 
same authority says: " If the natural resources of the 
American continent were fully developed, it would af- 
ford sustenance to 3,600,000,000 of inhabitants." 

In the above estimate of arable land in America is 
not included the vast region north of the 53d degree. 
And yet it is there that resources almost limitless have 
been discovered. James W. Taylor, considered an au- 



206 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

thority on this topic, claims that in the western half of 
Canada there are still 200,000,000 acres of land well 
adapted to wheat culture, but now lying fallow. This 
would be equal to the larger part of Europe, with a 
population of 215,000,000. 

Alaska likewise has resources which are not com- 
prised in the above estimate. Its cod-banks are the 
greatest in the world, with an extent of about 2600 
miles, and its grazing resources will sustain millions 
of head of cattle. 

Therefore, whatever the population of the American 
continent may finally be, a time will come when it will 
support more people than the Old World, and this for 
the simple reason that it is capable of supporting more. 

A glance at Australasia shows similar conditions, 
though by no means on the same scale. New Zealand, 
the inhabitants of which are the antipodes of Great 
Britain and Ireland, is very rich in natural resources, 
and is suited eminently to agriculture and grazing. 
Some 20,000,000 acres are still under forest. In 1901, 
there were reported in New Zealand 21,305,000 sheep. 
The climate of this island is delightful, admirably 
adapted to Europeans or Americans. In time it will 
become very wealthy and populous. There are pro- 
ductive mines of coal, gold, silver, and other precious 
or useful minerals on the island, and the annual output 
of these is now between $9,000,000 and $11,000,000. 

Australia is much less favoured by nature. A hint 
of that was given before. Still, in the possession of 
sturdy Anglo-Saxon stock, of late formed into a feder- 
ation of states, much may be expected from it. The 
mineral wealth of Australia is amazing. Since the 
discovery of gold, almost $2,000,000,000 of it have 
there been brought to the surface. Silver exists in 



The Pacific Hereafter 207 

considerable strata, and tin, copper, lead, and iron are 
also profitably mined. New South Wales alone, up to 
1900, had produced coal to the value of $187,357,000. 
There are grazing on Australian land over 110,000,- 
000 sheep, and together with those of New Zealand, 
furnished (in 1901) 567,000,000 pounds of wool. 
Her exports of frozen meats, leather, tallow, hides, 
furs, and other agricultural products are very large. 

There are barely 3,600,000 in the Australian colo- 
nies, but this small population has accumulated $7,- 
000,000,000 of wealth, or almost $2000 per head. 
This is a figure which exceeds that of our own wealth 
per head of population. Australia's foreign trade has 
attained to the enormous sum of nearly $1,000,000,- 
000 per year, thrice as much as that of China with a 
population more than a hundredfold greater. Evi- 
dently, Australia will play a figure in Pacific trade, and 
will be capable of supporting a much larger population. 

Of the South American continent and its almost 
limitless potentialities we have spoken before. It is 
but reasonable to conjecture that by the middle of the 
present century its population will have trebled, and 
its wealth quadrupled. 

The tropical wealth of the Dutch East Indies will be 
spoken of more in detail elsewhere. It may suffice to 
say here that this archipelago, having an area of 783,- 
000 square miles, and with a population of about 36,- 
000,000, that is, less than one-eighth the density of 
population of England, will support in the near future 
twice that number. 

The Malay Peninsula and Siam, Indo-China and 
French India, Formosa and Corea, lastly China, all 
have populations which under more favourable condi- 
tions may be doubled and trebled, and have natural re- 



208 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

sources of the first magnitude. Quickened by Western 
influences, these regions will hereafter play a great 
part. 

The population of Japan is very dense, and her scale 
of living is low, at least when compared with ours. 
But Japan has willingly submitted to western civilisa- 
tion. She has become a manufacturing nation of some 
account, and her foreign commerce flourishes, rising 
by leaps and bounds. Thus, we may expect the con- 
sumptive powers of her people to increase at something 
of the same rate it has already increased, namely, 
threefold since 1870. And this means, commercially 
speaking, an equivalent to a large increase in popu- 
lation. 

China's resources, as was shown before, are almost 
limitless. The introduction of western civilisation 
will necessarily have in its wake the raising of her 
standard of living. At present, the Chinaman of the 
lower classes earns in money about 5 per cent, of what 
our labouring men or mechanics earn. Even admitting 
the improbability of such a rapid advancement in 
China as occurred in Japan, and putting the increase 
in purchasing power of the Chinese people at one-half 
or one-third the increase of the Japanese during a 
given time, that would mean, nevertheless, speaking 
in a commercial sense, the doubling and trebling of 
our trade with her. 

It was shown in another chapter that China's popu- 
lation, speaking of the empire as a whole, has by no 
means reached the limits of density. There are very 
thickly settled portions of China, but even that province 
which shows the greatest density of population, that 
is, Shan Tung, exceeds but slightly England's density. 
For the whole of China we find a density per square 



The Pacific Hereafter 209 

mile of only 95, as against 188 in France, 209 in 
Germany, 315 in Great Britain, and 536 in England. 
If China were as densely peopled as Japan, she would 
have thrice her present population. Under favouring 
circumstances, we may look in China for such an in- 
crease within this present century, simply because she 
is vastly richer in natural resources than any of her 
neighbours, and has a climate mild and yet bracing. 

There is Siberia, an enormous expanse of country, 
and though her natural conditions are far inferior to 
those of China, it may be taken for granted that the 
six millions of her present inhabitants within this 
twentieth century will increase to twenty or thirty mil- 
lions. For, after all is said and done, she has the 
immense Russian hinterland with its teeming millions, 
ever seeking an outlet and better opportunities east- 
wardly. Siberia is a country of magnificent distances, 
and she is rich in gold, platinum, iron, and copper, in 
valuable forests and fur-bearing animals, in arable 
and grazing lands, at least in her southern fringe. The 
Czar offers great bounties to the Siberian immigrant. 
To each Russian family intending to settle in Siberia 
he gives some 300 acres of land, a loan of $300 for 
thirty-two years without interest, agricultural imple- 
ments at cost, and exemption from military service, 
while free transportation is furnished to families with- 
out means. To the starving peasant of European 
Russia such an offer seems almost the millennium. 

The Philippines, too, within a short time will be on 
the highroad to prosperity. Even under the paralys- 
ing reign of Spain, this large group of islands had a 
foreign trade of $32,000,000 per year. What may be 
expected under American rule ! John Barrett, one-time 
minister of this country to Siam, says : " Even Java, 



2io The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

the garden of the East, with a foreign trade of $250,- 
000,000 annually, has no such large extent of fertile 
areas as the Philippines." We may confidently look 
to a vast increase of her present population of 9,000,- 
000 and of her foreign trade. 

Summarising, then, this hasty survey of the lands 
which border on the Pacific, we find three conditions : 
First, the countries on the north, east, and southwest 
are vast continents, sparsely settled at present, but by 
reason of their intrinsic potentialities capable of an 
enormous increase of population. Second, scattered 
over the more remote portions of the Pacific are thou- 
sands of islands, lying mostly in the tropics, and with 
great natural resources. Of these many, such as Su- 
matra and Borneo, are tenanted by savages, but may 
be brought under the influence of civilisation, which 
means trade. Third, on the mainland of Asia we dis- 
cover millions upon millions of people who, under the 
vitalising influence of Occidental civilisation, will be 
able to increase their earning and purchasing powers 
immensely. In fine, we have ascertained conditions 
presaging an almost boundless increase in the trade of 
the Pacific. 

But this trade, even at present, is no small matter. 
John Barrett in this connection says that " the foreign 
trade of this wonderful Pacific-Asiatic coast line, that 
winds in and out for 4000 miles from Singapore to 
Vladivostok, is valued at the mighty sum of $1,000,- 
000,000, and yet is only in the earliest stages of its 
development." 

This, it must be remembered, leaves aside the foreign 
trade of Australia and Oceanica, itself amounting to 
considerably over $1,000,000,000, the export and im- 
port trade of the Dutch East Indies, which means 



The Pacific Hereafter 2 1 1 

another $250,000,000, and also that of the British 
Indies, Siam and the French possessions, and some 
other hitherto neglected regions. If all this were in- 
cluded, the total annual figure for the Pacific trade 
would rise to the gigantic total of $5,000,000,000. 
With all that, it must be conceded that this trade is 
still in its infantile stage, capable of great development. 

Let us analyse, however, a little more closely the 
present main items of trade in this region, and some 
of its natural resources. 

In 1902, these countries together produced 1,207,- 
000,000 pounds of wool out of the world's total of 
2,752,000,000 pounds. A few of these new lands, con- 
taining only 6 per cent, of the world's population, pro- 
duced of late years 30 per cent, of the world's wheat. 
In 1902, Pacific countries gave up some $176,900,000 
in gold, while all other lands together yielded but 
$121,560,000. The proportion of the world's silver 
produced by these lands was still greater, namely, 
$203,653,000, against $22,439,000 from the remainder 
of the world. Indeed, the borderlands of the Pacific 
Ocean are amazingly rich in precious metals. They 
are to be found in abundance in Australia, New Zea- 
land, the Philippines, China, Corea, Alaska, California, 
British Columbia, and all along the western coast of 
South and Central America, even to Patagonia. In 
that inhospitable region at the southernmost end of 
South America, Tierra del Fuego, it is estimated that 
mineral wealth awaits the enterprising miner which 
may equal or exceed that of the Klondike. 

Hereafter, we must look for a much keener compe- 
tition in the whole Pacific than obtains now. The 
Panama Canal, while furnishing vastly increased op- 
portunities for a larger and more profitable trade with 



212 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

all the Pacific countries, will necessarily have also this 
effect of putting each of the leading trading nations on 
its mettle. The race for wealth and power will be a 
spirited, a pitiless one, and each must put his best foot 
foremost. Enterprise is considered, the world over, 
a distinctly American characteristic. This is the time 
to prove it. The China market during the next twenty 
years will be the great bone of contention. 

The enormous size of the Pacific, and the great dis- 
tances to be traversed between ports located on either 
shore, has told so far against rapid expansion in the 
Pacific. The Pacific at the equator has a width of 
10,000 miles, 8500 at the Tropic of Cancer between 
Hong Kong and Mazatlan on the Mexican coast, and 
4750 between Yokohama and San Francisco. This 
means more than double the average width of the At- 
lantic, and the entire absence of islands, except 
midway, emphasises this fact still more. But we must 
not forget the fast-increasing average rapidity of 
ocean communication. The present Pacific steamer 
lines do not come up in this respect to requirements 
that will be made hereafter. A twenty-one-knot vessel 
would cross the Pacific between San Francisco and 
Yokohama in ten days, between Valparaiso and Vladi- 
vostok in seventeen days, and between the two remotest 
points, lying 10,000 miles apart, in twenty-two days. 
Such vessels will plough the Pacific as soon as the pres- 
sure of new conditions, precipitated by the digging of 
the Panama Canal, will have begun to be seriously felt. 
Indeed, with the speed-rate on the Atlantic steamer 
lines constantly increasing, even faster time than the 
above may be looked for. 

In the foregoing it has probably become sufficiently 
evident to the reader that the greater portion of man- 



The Pacific Hereafter 213 

kind will soon be gathered around the New Mediter- 
ranean, because there is plenty of elbow-room, and also 
because there are the resources capable of sustaining 
and enriching the world. Becoming the centre of the 
world's population and commerce, the Pacific will be- 
come likewise the centre of the world's wealth and 
power. At the close of this century San Francisco 
will probably have succeeded New York as the im- 
perial city of America. 

There have been some few far-sighted men in the 
long ago who predicted such a turn in man's affairs. 
One of them was Alexander von Humboldt, that saga- 
cious scientist and cosmopolitan traveller who, in his 
chief work, more than half a century ago, predicted the 
ultimate supremacy of the Pacific. Several of our 
American statesmen, William H. Seward and Thomas 
H, Benton among them, had a similarly acute pre- 
vision. 

Surveying to-day soberly all the inherent facts, any 
man possessing the ability of correlating facts and 
drawing a conclusion may well say: It is the Pacific, 
its shores, its islands, and the vast inland regions 
which will become the chief theatre of events in the 
world's great hereafter. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE DUTCH EAST INDIES 

There is one colonial empire within the Pacific 
sphere of influence which, curiously enough, has so 
far escaped the attention of Americans. That is the 
Dutch East Indies. It is a curious fact in more ways 
than one, because the untold riches of this matchless 
group of islands under Dutch sway have formed the 
burden of many a song and story for centuries past, 
and still more because this archipelago, since our ac- 
quisition of the Philippines, has become our close 
neighbour. Every vessel coming from the west has to 
thread its way cautiously through this maze of islands 
before it can reach the Philippines or the countries 
beyond, China and Japan. And yet, after all, it is not 
so curious, this ignoring of the Dutch East Indies on 
our part. For, from the start, it has been the owner's 
shrewd policy to brag as little as possible about his 
property, to keep everything close, and to prevent, as 
far as practicable, the outside world from discussing 
the modes and methods by which the tiny Netherlands 
have clung, ever since 1600, so tenaciously to this 
tropical mine of wealth. Theirs has been a policy of 
addition, division, and silence, and they have thrived 
wonderfully well under it. But new conditions have 
arisen of late, to the great dismay of the honest and 
long-headed burgher of Amsterdam, and it is well to 
take note of that. 

214 



The Dutch East Indies 215 



III \ 



PBIIIIB|i!|l|!l!S|St*^!:* I 



^ 



■ 








21 6 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

A glance at the map will show what a vast posses- 
sion is that of Netherlands-India. It nearly equals in 
size British India itself, covering an area of 783,000 
square miles, and lying altogether within the luxuriant 
tropics. But though for three hundred years past the 
thrifty Dutchman has drawn immense wealth into his 
coffers from these colonies, they have not cost him 
(until the very recent past) much blood or treasure. 
No Clive or Hastings had to fight warlike hosts, in 
order to establish the supremacy of the Hollander over 
the Malay. With Holland, in fact, rule over that rich 
island world began quite modestly, purely as a matter 
of barter and sale with the dusky native, the precious 
spices of the Moluccas being the objective point. 
These beginnings were about 1600, very soon after the 
little country had fought her way to recognised inde- 
pendence from the Spanish yoke. A trading company, 
something like the British East India Company, but 
more grasping and monopolistic in character, ex- 
ploited the riches of the Malayan archipelago for fully 
two hundred years before Holland ever thought of 
exerting any real political rule over the scattered 
islands. This company poured million after million 
into the lap of the privileged few at home, and its 
ships plied the southern seas with the one end in view 
of getting cargoes of precious wares for next to 
nothing, and selling them on the Amsterdam bourse 
for their weight in gold. 

The nineteenth century came, and during the Na- 
poleonic wars the Dutch Indies became the good prize 
of Britain. But the Congress of Vienna restored to 
the Netherlands their treasured possessions. For 
another half-century and more the old policy of 
" squeeze " was pursued by Holland in managing her 



The Dutch East Indies 217 

East Indian isles, and the subject population of Java, 
Celebes, Madura, and — as far as circumstances per- 
mitted — of Sumatra and Borneo as well, was kept at 
hard and ceaseless labour to enrich the Dutch spoils- 
men. Dr. Clive Day of Yale has lately told the 
English-speaking world all about the horribly inhu- 
man governmental methods persisted in by the Nether- 
lands in Java. A change for the better has been 
wrought within the past thirty years. The present 
system of administration in the Dutch East Indies, par- 
ticularly Java, the " Pearl of the Tropics," may be 
termed one of " credit bondage." This means that 
the native, by nature lazy, is forced to work for his 
creditor until his debt is extinguished. Almost every 
native is actually under debt, and he lives and dies a 
debtor. Not only so, but the debt descends to his chil- 
dren and children's children. It is, therefore, some- 
thing worse than the Chinese and Japanese " coolie 
labour " system. However, this present system is a 
vast improvement over former ones. It is defended 
not only by the Dutch themselves, but by many for- 
eign observers, as being the only method possible in 
Java and the whole Dutch East Indies under given cir- 
cumstances. Count Joachim Pfeil, a German authority, 
in his recent book, likewise approves of it and recom- 
mends its adoption for Germany's African colonies as 
the only means to induce the natives there to work. 

A striking contrast is thus presented between the 
Dutch East Indies, under the rule of Holland, and the 
Philippines, under American sway. 

The determining idea with the Dutch is to compel 
the native to work, and to work for the benefit of the 
Dutch people and government, leaving the labourer 
himself just enough for the bare necessities of life. 



21 8 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

The main staple in Java is coffee, and the culture, 
purchase, and sale of that are a government mo- 
nopoly. 

The American idea is to raise the native Filipino, by 
stages, to a higher level of mentality, morals, and eco- 
nomic efficiency, thus gradually making a responsible 
political being of him. 

Which of the two ideas is the correct one is a riddle 
time alone can solve. But on the face of it, nothing 
could well be more repugnant to American conceptions 
of the rights and ends of man than the Dutch way of 
treating a subject population, one, too, showing a 
close race affinity with, and standing at present just 
about on the same level as, the bulk of the population in 
our Philippines. What incarnate cruelty these Dutch 
masters have been guilty of in their treatment of the 
Malay natives may be judged by a single illustration. 
A famine broke out in central Java, one of the 
naturally richest parts of the world, and over 300,000 
natives died of hunger. This was solely due to the 
fact that by the so-called " culture system " in vogue, 
the Dutch administration in Java, compelling each 
person to labour in the coffee fields at a per diem al- 
lowance of about one cent, made it impossible for the 
starving natives to till their fruitful fields for the pur- 
pose of supplying their own crying needs. 

It has been stated that there is to be seen improve- 
ment, relatively speaking, in administrative methods 
in the Dutch East Indies. To-day such wholesale 
waste of human lives no longer occurs. Under the 
new civil service rules, natives of Java, after passing 
an examination, may be appointed to minor offices in 
the local and provincial governments. But " credit 
bondage " survives, and altogether the same brutally 



The Dutch East Indies 219 

selfish and grasping methods still prevail, making out 
of the native a beast of burden. 

With all that, these Dutch administrative methods 
in Java and, more or less, in the other islands, are sig- 
nally failing. For a period of thirty-five years Java 
alone had yielded the home government a large and 
regular surplus, computed to have been some $350,- 
000,000 within that period. Of late years there has 
been a regular deficit, steadily rising. In 1902, it 
amounted to $3,821,226, and in 1903, to $6,017,170. 
For 1904, the budget is likely to show a still larger 
shortage. 

Let us look a little more closely at the resources and 
prevaling material conditions in this archipelago under 
Dutch rule. We find the following : 

Java and Madura, 50,554 square miles, population, 
28,745,698; Sumatra (east coast), 31,649 square 
miles, population, 1,527,297; Sumatra (west coast), 
35,312 square miles, population, 421,088; Sumatra 
(Lampongs), 11,284 square miles, population, 142,- 
426; Sumatra (Palembang), 53,497 square miles, 
population, 692,317; Sumatra (Atjeh), 20,471 square 
miles, population, 110,804; Island of Benkulen, 9399 
square miles, population, 158,767 ; Borneo (west coast) , 
55,825 square miles, population, 370,775 ; Borneo 
(south and east), 156,912 square miles, popula- 
tion, 716,822 ; Celebes, 49,390 square miles, population, 
1,448,700; Celebes (Menado), 22,080 square miles, 
population, 293,947; Dutch New Guinea, 151,789 
square miles, population, 200,000; Molucca Islands, 
43,864 square miles, population, 430,855 ; Bali and 
Lombok, 4065 square miles, population, 431,696; 
Timor archipelago, 17,698 square miles, population, 
119,239; and a number of smaller or larger islands, of 



220 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

which Banca (with famed tin mines) and Billiton 
are the most important, giving a total of something 
over 36,000,000 (census of 1900) in population, and 
an area of 783,400 square miles. 

The revenues for Java, in 1901, amounted to 149,- 
255,766 Dutch guilders (the guilder equals 42 cents), 
and the expenditures to 148,279,953, leaving a surplus 
of 975,823. For 1902, the figures were 152,186,414 
and 159,728,866, respectively, making a shortage of 
7,542,452 guilders. Last year, as stated before, the de- 
ficit had grown to double the last-named figure. 

By examining somewhat closely the budget figures 
of 1903, we find that out of the total expenditures of 
x ^5'383'599 guilders, the home government spent 34,- 
662,974 guilders, leaving to Java itself a sum of 130,- 
720,725 guilders. About one-third of the general ex- 
penditure of Java is for army and navy purposes, an- 
other third for general administration of the colonial 
offices, and one-third is used in helping to pay the in- 
terest on the national debt and for railroads and other 
internal improvements. 

As was briefly mentioned before, the main source 
of revenue, both for the government and for the 
Dutch planters and residents of this imperial island, is 
coffee. In quality and price, Java coffee enjoys practi- 
cally a monopoly the world over. There are, however, 
a variety of other means of revenue, such as the salt 
monopoly, railway incomes, taxes on trades, the opium 
tax, customs duties, and taxes on mining privileges. 
A clear distinction is made in the official account of im- 
ports and exports in Java between " government mer- 
chandise " and " private merchandise." For 1900, the 
imports of Java amounted to 195,923,522 guilders, 
whereof 9,370,149 "government merchandise." The 



The Dutch East Indies 221 

exports were 259,033,606 guilders, whereof " govern- 
ment merchandise," 26,954,304. Altogether, then, ex- 
ports and imports for that year amounted in American 
money to about $186,000,000. 

The principal articles of export are : coffee, sugar, 
rice (of which one-half goes to Borneo and China), 
tea, indigo, cinchona, tobacco, and tin. More than 
four-fifths of the whole export goes to the Netherlands. 
The imports of Java, in even a larger proportion, are 
from the Netherlands. The remaining small fragment 
of the import trade is almost altogether in the hands of 
Britain and British colonies. This country has, prac- 
tically, no direct trade with Java. 

In 1900, there entered the principal ports of Java 
3445 steamers, with a tonnage of 1,638,666, and sail- 
ing vessels, 1842, with a tonnage of 588,868. In 1901, 
the total length of railways in the island was 1348 
miles, the revenues of which amounted to 18,447,000 
guilders. Within the Dutch Indies in the same year 
there were 7003 miles of telegraph in operation. 

The Chinese question in Java is a very interesting 
one, although quite different in character from our 
own. The Chinaman there is not the " hewer of wood 
and drawer of water." He is the merchant and capi- 
talist, the shrewd and unscrupulous trader, going the 
canny Dutchman always " one better." 

From the above birds-eye view it will have been no- 
ticed that Java, economically considered, forms the 
very backbone of the Dutch empire in the Indies. Out- 
side of that island population is sparse and largely in 
a barbarous condition. For thirty years past, Su- 
matra, a large island of boundless intrinsic possibili- 
ties, but with very small population and very little de- 
veloped, has cost Holland a pretty penny. The Atchi- 



222 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

nese, a sturdy and bellicose tribe inhabiting the north 
end of the island, have been in a state of constant re- 
bellion. To subdue them, Holland has spent within 
that time a sum aggregating several hundred million 
dollars, and her loss in troops and civilian population 
due to these " murthering villians," has amounted to 
over 60,000. This fact forms a curious feature of Dutch 
colonial history, for it stands out alone. Nor is that 
part of Sumatra very valuable. It must be the inborn 
stubbornness of the Dutch character that is responsible 
for such an enormous and disproportionate outlay in 
money and men. The Atchinese war is still on, nor is 
there apparently any prospect of a speedy end of it. 
During March last, in a single engagement between the 
Dutch colonial troops and the rebellious Atchinese, 
677 of the latter were left dead on the field. The Dutch 
East Indian army is maintained at about 38,000, and 
nowadays it is almost altogether used to keep these 
savage Atchinese in a more or less complete state of 
subjection. 

And that brings us to the question : what is to be- 
come of the Dutch East Indies? The question may 
well be asked in view of all the attendant circumstances. 
Let us examine them. 

Holland's hold on her East Indian possessions is 
steadily relaxing. In Mr. Colquhoun's " Mastery of 
the Pacific" there occurs the following passage: 

" Up to the present time Holland has been singu- 
larly successful in preserving her colonial empire from 
outside influences, but with the recent developments in 
the Pacific a change must inevitably come. The po- 
sition of Netherlands-India between two go-ahead and 
flourishing democracies — Australia and the United 
States in the Philippines — will make it difficult to pre- 



The Dutch East Indies 223 

serve the isolation and monopoly hitherto maintained 
by the Dutch, and the revolutionary methods adopted 
by the United States cannot be without great influence 
on all the other islands of the Malay archipelago. To 
educate 8,000,000 Malays in the English tongue is in 
itself a step fraught with the most far-reaching con- 
sequences, and it seems impossible that the Javanese, 
Celebeans, Borneans, and the many semi-independent 
tribes of other islands should not be swept up by the 
wave of civilisation which, for good or evil, has at 
length caught a great part of their race on its crest 
and is bearing them on towards an unknown future. 
... Is Netherlands-India to be exempt — to lie like a 
log in the middle of the great Pacific trade routes and 
not be absorbed into the busy, bustling, wide-awake 
whole? The colonial Dutch — who form seven-eighths 
of the white population — are rapidly becoming alienated 
from their native land, and a population is springing up 
which is as little Dutch as the Spanish Mestizos of the 
Philippines are Spaniards, and these cannot be said to 
see eye to eye with their rulers. Nevertheless, Dutch 
phlegm, combined with an indolence born of the tropical 
climate, would prevent any very strong colonial spirit 
from growing up unless pressure occurs from outside. 
Such pressure is likely to occur in the immediate future. 
Not only will Britain, the United States, Japan, and 
Australasia enter into the keenest competition in the 
new fields of enterprise in the Pacific, and so cut away 
the ground under Holland's feet and render her slack 
tenure of many islands precarious, but the ambitions 
of France and Germany will further complicate the 
situation. If the prosperity of the Javanese planter 
were to decline, who knows that he might not 
prefer to be under the flag of an enterprising power, 



224 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

rather than one whose creed is ' As it was and 
ever shall be ! ' That Germany casts longing eyes 
in the direction of the East Indies has long been an 
open secret, and that she intends, sooner or later, to 
swallow up her little neighbour in Europe everyone 
knows, but the Hollanders will take a good deal of 
swallowing, despite the German alliance of their queen 
and other circumstances. The colonies are another 
thing, and we may yet live to see a Greater Germany 
in the Pacific." 

This is all very true, as far as it goes, but there are a 
good many other things that enter into this problem. 
Here are a few of them : 

The Hollanders are a small nation of 5,000,000, 
numerically too small to colonise their colonies in the 
full sense. That is why we find in the hundreds of 
islands making up the Dutch East Indies, with the 
single exception of Java, so few Dutchmen, even in- 
cluding officials and soldiers. Their colonial army is 
made up, to the extent of nine-tenths, of foreigners and 
hirelings. The officials, at least those holding minor 
offices, are largely natives or foreigners. Excepting in 
Java, Dutch rule in this whole archipelago is usually 
represented only by a " resident," and would crumble 
to pieces at the first attack by a vigorous outside 
power. 

For Holland, the days of profitably administering 
her colonies are over. The regular and increasing 
deficit in her colonial budgets shows this. Even the mo- 
nopolistic system and the serfdom in which she has 
held the Javanese — forming over three-fourths of her 
entire subject population — for three hundred years past, 
have not been able to prevent this. The Atchinese war 
has been a curse under which the small Dutch nation 



The Dutch East Indies 225 

has been groaning for over thirty years past, encum- 
bering her budgets and decimating her colonial army. 

The Dutch do not care, and never did care, for colo- 
nies per se, but only in so far as they bring treasure to 
her coffers. For a number of years the Dutch have 
seen the writing on the wall. It is but necessary to 
study with attention their newspapers and magazines 
to become convinced of that. 

Since 1898, when Dewey's guns reverberated 
throughout Far Asia, the Dutch have felt that their 
rule in the East Indies is doomed. Since that time, the 
question has been ventilated by them, not so much 
whether they shall relinquish their dominion in Asiatic 
waters, as rather to whom. This topic of discussion has 
more than once been transferred to their national par- 
liament, and with every airing of the subject the number 
of those advocating the sale or cession of their colonies 
has increased. Of course, the one fact that their colo- 
nies have ceased to be profitable to them has been the 
chief factor in this growing desire, although the fur- 
ther consideration that sooner or later some larger and 
more ambitious power will deprive her of these pos- 
sessions has also had much to do with it. 

In other words, stripped of all verbiage, the ques- 
tion for the Dutch people has narrowed down to this : 
Who is to be our successor in the Far East? That 
question, of course, may be answered in various ways. 
Germany answers it in one way. 

That Germany has had her eye on the Dutch pos- 
sessions in Asia during the last thirty years is a fact 
which cannot well be denied. The German press has 
often discussed it, advocated, or advised against, their 
acquisition. All the driving forces of German public 
opinion have been in favour of acquisition in one form 



226 The Pacific and the Panama Canal 

or another. The question has popped up in the Reichs- 
tag again and again. In fact, it may be asserted with- 
out any reserve that the overwhelming portion of the 
German people would be willing to submit to almost any 
sacrifice for the control, direct or indirect, of the Dutch 
East Indies. Nothing could be more natural for the 
Germans than such a wish and purpose. For Germany 
is overcrowded and needs new fields of expansion. 
Within the Dutch press, a few of the leading organs 
have favoured German acquisition of these East In- 
dian possessions, or else condominion, Germany guar- 
anteeing possession. But as a matter of pure choice, 
the Dutch people would prefer France for their suc- 
cessor in Asia. They do not fear annexation by 
France, but they do fear it from Germany, and they 
do not wish to hasten the process. Still, if France, for 
some reason or other, should not desire to take over the 
Dutch inheritance, the people of the Netherlands would 
rather see Uncle Sam become the happy heir than their 
German neighbour, and this for similar reasons to 
those actuating them as regards France. 

It is, then, broadly speaking, a choice for the Dutch 
people — and perhaps not for them alone — between the 
three nations of Germany, France, and the United 
States, as to who is to be the future owner of the Dutch 
East Indies. The moment when such transfer or pur- 
chase is to take place may still be years off. On the 
other hand, events in the Pacific may proceed here- 
after at such an accelerated pace that the decision must 
come between one day and the next. In any event, it 
will be the part of wisdom and of legitimate national 
egotism for Americans to acquaint themselves now 
with the leading facts underlying this most interesting 
problem, so that events hereafter may not take them 



The Dutch East Indies 227 

unprepared. It is well to face this matter boldly and 
with eyes open, for the Dutch East Indies may well be 
compared with an overripe plum which will drop at 
the first shaking of the tree into some enterprising na- 
tion's lap. The Dutch cannot hold it much longer; 
everything points that way. 

That being so, the question crops up: Who is to 
have the Dutch East Indies, Germany or the United 
States? Let us keep in mind that this Dutch island 
empire is our next-door neighbour in the Philippines, 
the latter being our base and lever for the whole Amer- 
ican policy in Far Asia, and that German acquisition 
of that wonderful region would no more be palatable 
than her acquisition of the Danish Antilles in the 
Caribbean Sea, and this because of the same attendant 
circumstances. 



THE RACE IS TO THE WISE 



CHAPTER XVI 
OUR EQUIPMENT FOR THE RACE 

Throughout this book the assertion has been met 
with, here and there, that this nation is destined to be 
the supreme factor in the future development of the 
Pacific. We are now concerned with proving this 
contention. 

The most momentous advantage of the United States 
is her interoceanic location, giving two great bases of 
action. The location itself we share with Mexico, the 
Central American republics, Colombia, and Chile; 
this last-named country owns a narrow tape of terri- 
tory extending around the southern extremity of the 
continent to the Atlantic entrance of the Straits of 
Magellan. But all these countries, for practical pur- 
poses, can be left out of the reckoning; they possess 
neither size nor political and commercial development 
sufficient to enable them to become competitors, and 
this even if we ignore the economic inferiority of their 
Latin-American populations. 

To the north of us, a young and ambitious neigh- 
bour, of the same blood and aspirations as ourselves, 
has also a broad frontage on both oceans, enjoying, 
moreover, as part of the British Empire, the great ad- 
vantages to be derived from the possession of British 
mid-ocean islands in the Pacific, to serve as way-sta- 
tions to the opposite coasts. British Columbia, with 
its iooo miles of seaboard and its excellent harbours, 

231 



232 The Race is to the Wise 

occupies a fine position in relation to trade with China 
and Japan, Siberia and Manchuria. This colony 
enjoys other natural advantages, such, for instance, as 
large coal mines yielding an article of excellent quality, 
a point of particular importance because of the scarcity 
of coal along the whole United States littoral. Again, 
British Columbia has all of Canada's resources back of 
her — another item of strength on her ledger. But 
allowing for all this, the disadvantage of a location too 
far north and west, a sparse population, an undeveloped 
hinterland, and the immense distance which severs her 
from the mother country, when taken together, min- 
imise the natural advantages enumerated before. 

Since the middle of the last century the fact defined 
itself that the United States was to be a Pacific power. 
It was clearly recognised at the outset by American 
statesmen, and our national policy has been consistently 
shaped accordingly. The conquest of California and 
the acquisition of Oregon, together with the rapid 
settlement of these promising territories, were chief 
stepping-stones in this direction. 

The mere presence of the United States on the 
Pacific sufficed for a long time to fix the idea firmly 
in the minds of Europe's statesmen that we had come 
to stay there and that our role, with every new year, 
must necessarily gain in importance. This, too, was the 
guiding reason which induced Russia, in 1867, to press 
upon us Alaska, thus strengthening our base on the 
Pacific and weakening that of her hereditary enemy — 
England. For, with Alaska in our hands, British 
Columbia was placed between the fires of American 
enterprise on both its northern and southern borders. 
The " ten marine leagues," moreover, which fix the 
width of the long " panhandle " of southern Alaska, 



Our Equipment for the Race 233 

cut off 1000 miles of the natural Pacific frontage of 
British Columbia. Again, the possession of the penin- 
sula and the Aleutian Islands gives our Pacific base 
a reach of over 4000 miles, from San Diego to Attu, I 
300 miles beyond the international date-line of the 
1 80th meridian, and only 600 miles from the nearest 
Japanese islands. Alaska has made us a near neigh- 
bour of Russia, the Bering Strait alone separating us 
from her Asiatic dominions. 

Americans have been slow, overslow, in recognising 
the immense value of Alaska, not alone in material 
resources, but as a strategic base in our Pacific policy, 
and as a means of curtailing British influence which 
otherwise would be overweening. It is only since the 
acquisition of the Philippines that this truth, plain 
and easily grasped as it is, has been slowly gaining 
headway in the mind of the nation. Indeed, in the 
approaching struggle for supremacy in the Pacific, our 
possession of Alaska will be an all-important factor. 
With it we are invincible ; without it we should be de- 
prived of one of our best weapons. 

Take the item of coal and mineral mines as an illus- 
tration. Coal and iron abound in many parts of 
Alaska. On the Chilkat River the supply is appar- 
ently inexhaustible. Professor Davidson, of the Coast 
Geodetic Survey, relates that while at Chilkat he 
noticed the marked aberration of the needle of his 
compass, and discovered that it was caused by a moun- 
tain of iron ore some 2000 feet high. On further 
investigation this mountain proved to be only one of 
a range of similar character extending 30 miles. This 
authority adds: " As if nature had anticipated its use 
to man, a coal mine was found nearby." The greatest 
copper ledge in the United States and a lake of oil are 



234 



The Race is to the Wise 



reported from Alaska. The timber wealth of Alaska 
is perhaps unequalled, and it is peculiarly rich in yellow 
cedar, so remarkable for its durability both on land 
and sea. 

It is, however, the coal wealth of Alaska, above all, 
which commands our attention, and this both for the 




Alaskan Coal Fields 

Courtesy of Engineering Magazine 

reason that coal of good quality is scarce along the 
whole borders of the Pacific in America and Asia, and 
because this coal exists in profusion and in unexcelled 
quality. The first field with promises of real com- 
mercial importance was found pretty far north along 
the coast, just east of the mouth of Copper River. 
This coal is the best found on the whole Pacific sea- 
board, equal to the standard Albion Cardiff coal of 
Wales. The seams are thick and extensive. The coal 
found just off Cook Inlet, at the extremity of the Kenai 
Peninsula, is likewise commercially exploitable. How- 
ever, the most important of Alaskan coal fields lies 



Our Equipment for the Race 235 

still farther west towards the extremity of the long, 
slender Alaskan Peninsula and on Unga Island, crop- 
ping out in many seams at Portage Bay on the Pacific, 
as well as Herendeen Bay on Bering Sea. This coal 
ranks next in quality to that discovered near the mouth 
of Copper River, and is equal to any mined farther 
south. Because of the situation of the field near pro- 
tected harbours — an important matter in the wide 
sweep of the Pacific — and its location on the great 
circle of navigation, constituting the shortest route for 
steamer lines between the United States and any part 
of Asia, it assumes paramount importance. Portage 
Bay will be a coaling station three degrees of longi- 
tude farther west than Honolulu and one equipped 
with its own mines, from which coal will be delivered 
to deep-sea vessels at low cost. Situated in the lati- 
tude of Glasgow, and like it exposed to mild ocean 
winds, the Portage Bay mines have a winter not more 
severe than that of New York ; thus, climate will inter- 
pose no obstacles in their development. The above 
facts are largely taken from a minute report, based 
on surveys on the spot, made by H. Emerson, an 
American civil engineer of note. His report has 
since been verified abundantly, and the national gov- 
ernment has based its calculations for the future 
upon it. 

Following close on Dewey's victory in Manila Bay 
and the subsequent acquisition of the Philippines, came 
the recognition of the fact that certain other advan- 
tages, hitherto overlooked, had to be made speedy use 
of to strengthen our strategic and commercial position 
in the Pacific. The annexation of Hawaii was the 
first step taken, and, of course, the most important. It 
was supplemented by the practical assertion of our 



236 The Race is to the Wise 

rights of possession of Wake Island and Guam, the lat- 
ter being the southernmost isle of the Ladrones group. 
In this way a direct mid-ocean line of communication 
between the home shore and the Philippines was 
assured. Looking at this achievement from any point 
of view — commercial, political, or military — it must 
be considered a master-stroke of prompt politics. 

The annexation of the Hawaiian Islands was in- 
evitable. They had sought refuge under the starry 
banner a half-century before, and many times after. 
They had been successively under British, French, 
and American protection, but the logic of events, as 
well as their geographic location and the economic 
conditions depending on the latter, again and again 
brought them into the maelstrom of American affairs. 
This country had at no time been indifferent to the 
ultimate fate of Hawaii, and had twice interfered in 
her behalf with England; and once, in 1850, with 
France. Daniel Webster already declared, in 1843, 
that no other power must get possession of these 
islands. Economically, since 1876, Hawaii had been 
brought entirely under American influence. Her chief 
crop — indeed almost her only one, namely, sugar — 
was, under the compromise of 1876, entirely absorbed 
in this country, being admitted free of duty. Ameri- 
can capital was almost exclusively exploiting the isl- 
ands many years before formal annexation took place. 
In fact, Hawaii, for all her beautiful clime and tropical 
fertility, would have starved or run to seed if she had 
not been able to sell her sugar to this country, for such 
is her geographic location that the only consumer to 
whom she can profitably dispose of her products is the 
United States. 

But, on the other hand, Hawaii means much to us. 



Our Equipment for the Race 237 



Look at Hawaii on the map. Midway between 
Unalaska and the Society Islands, midway between 
Sitka and Samoa, midway between Port Townsend 
and the Fiji Islands, midway between San Francisco 
and the Carolines, midway between the Panama Canal 
and Hong Kong, and on the direct route from South 




_ ToS«n}Kong,J6l7 miUl 
To Mnr.Ha, M02 mj 



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bosmay * eo., N. 




Hawaii 



American ports to Japan, the central location of these 
islands makes their commercial importance evident. 

But vastly greater is their strategic value to the 
United States. Captain Mahan says : " Too much 
stress cannot be laid upon the immense disadvantage 
to us of any maritime enemy having a coaling station 
well within 2500 miles of every point of our coast line 
from Puget Sound to Mexico. Were there many 
others available, we might find it difficult to exclude 
from all. There is, however, but the one. Shut out 
from the Sandwich Islands as a coal base, an enemy 
is thrown back for supplies of fuel to distances of 3500 
or 4000 miles — or between 7000 and 8000 going and 



238 The Race is to the Wise 

coming — an impediment to sustained maritime opera- 
tions well-nigh prohibitive. It is rarely that so im- 
portant a factor in the attack or defence of a coast line 
— of a sea-frontier — is concentrated in a single posi- 
tion, and the circumstance renders it doubly impera- 
tive upon us to secure it, if we righteously can." 

This was written in 1893, and the final annexation 
of Hawaii shows that the lesson and warning con- 
veyed in the above were minded at the right moment. 

With the Sandwich Islands we have acquired Pearl 
Harbour, of which Admiral Walker said : " It should 
not be forgotten that Pearl Harbour offers, strategi- 
cally and otherwise, the finest site for a naval and coal- 
ing station to be found in the whole Pacific." 

In 1899, by virtue of the tripartite agreement be- 
tween the United States, Germany, and England, we 
obtained absolute ownership of Tutuila and Manua, 
part of the Samoan Islands. The superior harbour 
situated on Tutuila, namely, Pango-Pango, had been 
ceded to us as early as 1872, but never actively occu- 
pied until after Dewey's achievement in Manila, again 
showing a prompt recognition of our widened sphere 
of influence. These two islands and the splendid har- 
bour mentioned are likewise of great strategic value. 
They lie at about 14 degrees south latitude and 170 
degrees west longitude, on the direct path from Puget 
Sound to Sydney, Australia, and on a line from 
Panama to east Australian ports. That describes their 
significance for the United States. 

Let us now turn for a moment to the Philippines. 
They are in the immediate proximity of the southern 
coast of China, and in the pathway of Far Asian com- 
merce. Manila is only 628 miles from Hong Kong, 
and 812 miles nearer than Singapore. It is 400 miles 



Our Equipment for the Race 239 



Hongkong 

(BritUh) 



FORMOSA 

kfSijJap&n) 



South C. 

Bashee Channel 



MAP OF THE 

.PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

8CALE OF STATUE MILES 



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nearer China than Yokohama. It lies directly on the 
route between Hong Kong and Australasia. The chief 
distributing centres of China, Japan, Corea, Siam, 



240 The Race is to the Wise 

Annam, and the East Indies are as near to Manila as 
Havana is to New York, and the distributing centres 
of British India and Australasia are nearer to Manila 
than to any other great emporium. When we consider 
that the imports of all these countries chiefly consist 
of goods which we can furnish cheaper and better than 
any other country, we get a suggestion of the possible 
commercial future of Manila under energetic American 
domination. Besides, our possession of the Philip- 
pines has enormously increased American prestige in 
China and throughout the East. 

The Hawaiian Islands, Wake Island, and Guam 
form a line of communication to Manila lying between 
the narrow limits of the 13th and 21st parallels. The 
American terminal points of this line are located at San 
Francisco, Los Angeles, and Panama, and to all three 
of these Honolulu holds a central position. The pre- 
eminence which it now enjoys as the radiating point 
of the great commercial routes of the Pacific will only 
be enhanced with the opening of the Panama Canal, 
because it will lie in the path of an increasing file of 
vessels moving along from Panama to China, Japan, 
or Asiatic Russia. At the western end of this island 
chain of communications are the Philippines. This 
large group, scattered over an area measuring 1000 
miles north to south and half as much east to west, is 
located wholly within the tropics, and distributed 
around it in a wide-sweeping semicircle are the Far 
Asian countries whose vast populations make the mar- 
kets of the East. 

At present we supply this whole market with only 
about 1 1 per cent, of its imports, while the commercial 
countries of Europe have a share of 50 per cent, of this 
import trade. The total commerce of the United 



Our Equipment for the Race 241 

States with Asia and Australasia has risen from $138,- 
000,000 in 1892 to $287,000,000 in 1902, having more 
than doubled within a single decade. Under the new 
conditions which we are now facing, these figures will 
rapidly rise to double and treble the amount. 

Considering, therefore, the problem of the future 
Pacific supremacy from the three points of geograph- 
ical location, commercial advantages and facilities for 
manufacture, and, lastly, of strategic strength, we find 
the United States impregnable. No other nation or 
group of nations possesses anything approximating our 
combined advantages. Two other points remain for 
consideration. One is population, and the other is 
naval strength. 

As to the former, the facts are well within our ken. 
We shall soon have passed the 100,000,000 point, and 
the middle of this century will probably see this nation 
fairly under way towards the second hundred million. 
Our immigration, far from diminishing, has of late 
years risen to heights equalled only during a few ex- 
ceptional years before, and the annual average is now 
higher than ever. With that, while in the older East- 
ern States (due to a variety of causes) the rate of 
natural increase has been diminishing, it is steadily on 
the increase in the West and South. We may easily 
look forward, therefore, to the time when, with the 
single possible exception of Russia, our mere numerical 
superiority will exert an unparallelled influence in a 
policy of expansion in the Far East and in South 
America. 

The same amount of confidence can hardly be felt 
when it comes to discussing the question of naval su- 
periority. With the close friendship now existing be- 
tween this country and Great Britain, it has become 



242 The Race is to the Wise 

a habit of speech and thought with many Americans 
to group the two navies, the British and the American, 
under one head. But this is scarcely in accordance 
with the underlying facts. For in the matter of 
supremacy in the Pacific we cannot expect Great 
Britain to forego her own hopes and ambitions. To 
do so would be folly. There can be only one su- 
premacy, be it British or American, and no joint action 
in such a matter is possible. The Briton in the Pacific 
hereafter will be one of our most formidable foes, just 
as much as the German — in fact, almost as much as the 
Russian. And the present British naval superiority — 
if it should remain — will give that nation at least one 
great advantage over us. There is no way out of this 
dilemma but the one — to make our navy the strongest 
in the Pacific. Let us cast a glance at the present 
naval conditions of the world, and thus arrive at an 
approximately correct idea regarding what is required 
of us. 

There are at present six large naval powers, these 
being: Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, the 
United States, and Japan. Their exact respective 
naval strength can be determined from several points 
of view. The ordinary way, of course, is to state the 
number of vessels, their armaments, and tonnage. 
This does give a sort of approximate idea, and, meas- 
ured in this way, Great Britain is to-day stronger than 
France and Russia combined, and almost as strong as 
Russia, France, and Germany together. This mode 
of reckoning is, however, deceptive, and not adopted 
by naval experts. From the total naval strength of 
each power must be eliminated, in order to arrive at 
practical results, all those vessels antedating a certain 
period, say, fifteen years, because after that time the 



Our Equipment for the Race 243 

usefulness of any war-vessel is doubtful. Applying, 
then, this measurement, we nevertheless arrive at a 
similar result. Again, the total tonnage of British 
men-of-war, cruisers, and torpedo boats is larger than 
that of France and Russia jointly. But even this 
mode of measuring naval strength and sea-power is 
discarded by competent judges. The battleships alone 
are considered the determining factors, and of these 
again only those of modern construction and of a prac- 
tically uniform type. On this principle was built up 
the youngest of the big navies — the Japanese — and on 
the same principle we are now making a powerful 
American navy. Germany, too, has made her navy on 
this plan. The naval events of this present war, how- 
ever, cast some doubt on this principle. It is true, on the 
one hand, that the much smaller, but homogeneous, 
Japanese navy has proved superior in efficiency to the 
larger Russian navy (larger even in her Pacific squad- 
ron), lacking in the element of homogeneity. But 
torpedo boats and armoured cruisers are also important 
factors ; of how much avail these would be in a pitched 
naval battle remains to be seen. The promptness of 
the Japanese disabled the Russian navy in the Pacific 
before the latter's vessels could be concentrated and 
give the enemy battle. 

In this connection it is interesting to note that during 
a Senate debate, late in April last, Senator Hale very 
tersely said : " I may say that if I were secretary of 
the navy, in the present condition, I should not dare to 
go and commit the Government to the building of an- 
other immense battleship costing $8,000,000. The 
lessons of war between Russia and Japan thus far go 
to show the vulnerability and the unsafety of those 
immense and lofty battleships, and the undesirability 



244 The Race is to the Wise 

at present of committing ourselves to the further con- 
struction of them. The great and salient events of the 
war show how incomplete as an engine of war one of 
these enormous, high-turreted battleships is. If she 
is struck below the water-line, and the centre of gravity- 
is disturbed, she turns over like a turtle, and everybody 
on board is drowned." 

Now, we have at present a capital of $150,000,000 
invested in the building of enormous battleships and 
heavily plated cruisers, and the growing belief among 
naval experts that the availability of the torpedo boats 
has been greatly underrated and that of the battleships 
overrated gives much point to Senator Hale's remarks. 
But it must be remembered that in this we are " in the 
same boat " with all the other naval powers. They, 
too, have all along believed in the surpassing strength 
of the battleship as the chief fighting factor in war, 
and our own experience at Santiago did much to fix 
this belief. In that battle we certainly won with our 
battleships, more powerful than those of Cervera. 
England's naval strength consists in her 29 first-class 
battleships of recent make. She, too, has enormous 
sums invested in the construction of new ones — about 
$250,000,000. The same is true of Germany, France, 
and Russia. The new situation — if it should prove a 
new one — does not vitiate, therefore, our general argu- 
ment. 

Whichever way we measure the effective fighting 
force, England is enormously in the lead — able to 
beat France and Russia, and perhaps able to hold her 
own against the three powers of France, Russia, and 
Germany. True, her fleet of battleships of recent date 
— that is, launched and completed since 1889 — is 34, 
against the 33 of France and Russia, and against the 



Our Equipment for the Race 245 

52 of those three powers together. But only 14 of the 
19 German battleships are really available, and of the 
33 battleships of Russia and France, 17 are of a size 
too small to compare with the British leviathans. So 
that, on this computation, Great Britain again has the 
best of it. 

Japan is a poor country, and her navy is about half 
the size of the present American one, one-third the size 
of that of France, and less than one-sixth of that of 
Great Britain. 

Now let us turn to the United States. At this writ- 
ing, she is still inferior in naval strength to Great 
Britain, France, Russia, and Germany. That is, if 
mere tonnage of battleships is to decide that question. 
The tonnage of our effective battleships is only 125,- 
900, as against Germany's 144,000, Russia's 221,000, 
France's 306,900, and Great Britain's 627,800. 

But, of course, the disparity is in reality not quite 
so great as that. The finishing touches are now being 
put to no less than seven American battleships and 
first-class iron-clad cruisers. All of these will be of 
tremendous fighting strength, in size from 16,200 tons 
down to 14,000, therefore among the largest war- ves- 
sels now afloat, fitted out with the latest improvements, 
and called by our naval experts " perfect wonders." 
By 1905, therefore, in tonnage of battleships alone we 
shall outclass Germany and Russia both, and in real, 
effective fighting strength shall be superior to France. 
But this is not all. The British blue-book published, 
in April last, a comparative table showing the rate of 
naval increase to be greatest in this country, the figures 
being 223,000 tons per annum for America, 185,000 
for Great Britain,. 127,000 for Russia, and 110,000 for 
Germany. If Congress persists in this policy and 



246 The Race is to the Wise 

maintains this rate of increase for, say, ten years, we 
shall, in 191 5, be second to Great Britain alone — that 
is, about the time of the opening of the Panama Canal. 

The French navy is admittedly in a bad way, both 
in ships and men. Quite a number of her war-vessels 
are antiquated, worn out, and practically worthless. 
The Russian navy has suffered such severe losses 
during this present war that it practically now ranks 
below either Germany's or this country's. Great 
Britain, too, has on her naval lists large numbers of 
vessels that have no real fighting value. Germany's 
navy is new, well officered and well manned, but prob- 
ably in all these respects behind ours. 

If we accept the authority of the Statesman's Y ear- 
Book for 1904, we find the present effective fighting 
strength of the main navies to be: British, 29 first- 
class battleships, 11 second-class, and 13 of the third, 
fourth, and fifth classes — altogether, 53 ; French, 1 
single first-class battleship, 10 second-class, and 20 of 
the third, fourth, and fifth classes; German, 5 first- 
class, 5 second-class, and 17 of the three lower classes; 
Russian, 3 first-class, 4 second-class, and 13 of the 
three lower classes (Russia, therefore, distinctly below 
Germany in real naval fighting strength) ; United 
States, 6 first-class, 6 second-class, and 1 1 of the three 
lower classes ; Japanese, 4 first-class, 2 second-class, 
and 2 of the fourth and fifth classes. In torpedo boats 
and destroyers, the ratio is the following (the coun- 
tries in the same order as above) : 238, 218, 95, 136, 

52, 75- 

According to these figures, then, the actual naval 
strength of Great Britain is even greater, compara- 
tively speaking, than by adopting the scale of com- 
parison mentioned before. Furthermore, we find (in 



Our Equipment for the Race 247 

the same comparative list) 10 first-class battleships 
building for Great Britain, 7 each for the United 
States and Germany, 6 for France, 10 for Russia, and 
2 for Japan. 

If by the close of the present Russo-Japanese war 
the torpedo and destroyer should have been proved 
superior in achievement to the battleship, why, that, 
of course, would upset all the present standards of 
comparison and would put France almost on the same 
footing with Great Britain. But that is a very large 
" if." 

Let us look the facts in the face. We see, in any 
event, that it will take a great deal more than our 
present rate of naval increase to own the largest and 
most powerful navy in the world. And there are great 
difficulties in the way. To build up such a navy re- 
quires, above all, three things : much time, much 
money, and many able and trained men. The Ameri- 
can people — that is, the broad masses — must first be- 
come convinced of the absolute necessity of having 
such a navy before they can possibly be willing to incur 
the sacrifices that it would entail. Look at the British 
budget, and you will see how enormous are these sac- 
rifices in men and money. The British budget for 
1903-04 shows $172,285,000 appropriated for the 
navy, with 127,100 men. If the American navy is to 
be the largest and most powerful of all, it would swal- 
low up an annual outlay of $200,000,000, and would 
need between 120,000 and 150,000 — men and officers 
— to man it. That would be a great burden, and the 
mere mention of such figures to-day would scare the 
average American. No Congressman on the floor of 
the House to-day would be bold enough to advocate 
such a naval programme. 



248 The Race is to the Wise 

Yet the day will come when the American people 
will clearly see that to win and hold the place fate has 
in store for us, such enormous sacrifices are absolutely 
required. Great Britain with her 40,000,000 of in- 
habitants willingly bears this burden, and her Parlia- 
ment every year makes the necessary appropriations. 
Shall a nation of 85,000,000, growing at the rate of 
2,000,000 a year, and with natural resources far 
superior to those of her cousin across the sea, shirk 
its responsibilities? If England is able to pay for her 
navy, we are doubly and trebly able to do so. It is 
only a question of driving this conviction home to the 
soul of the average American. 

A navy of inadequate size — that is the one great 
weak spot in our armour at present. Fortune has been 
kind enough to give us a geographical position which 
enables us to dispense with a gigantic army, an army 
that would have to be far more costly in blood and 
treasure than a navy of the first magnitude. Poverty- 
stricken Russia, a country at present on the very brink 
of national bankruptcy, is not so situated. She has 
to spend untold millions, wrung from her starving 
peasantry, to maintain both a huge army and a great 
navy. Germany, another one of our chief rivals in 
the Pacific hereafter, must likewise pay for two enor- 
mous fighting machines, one on land and the other on 
water. 

A matchless navy, powerful enough to enforce our 
policy in the Pacific, is an indispensable requisite to 
mastery there. 

It may be quite possible, in the years to come, to 
join our navy to that of Great Britain in the Pacific, 
in order to solve certain questions or to decide some 
specific and permanent issue of vital interest to both 



Our Equipment for the Race 249 

powers. That is quite possible, and, for instance, 
when the point should come to be determined whether 
Anglo-Saxon or Slav is to be the master in the Pacific, 
it might be that Great Britain would join hands with 
us. And then again, it mightn't. British statesman- 
ship of late years has played strange tricks, and the 
strangest of all, perhaps, we are witnessing at present. 
Great Britain and Japan, in 1902, made a formal alli- 
ance for the purpose of holding in check Russian 
power in Far Asia. In 1904, Russian aggression 
became so unbearable as to force small Japan into a 
life-and-death struggle with Russia. Then what does 
England do? She approaches Russia in a friendly 
way for the avowed purpose of making her per- 
manent peace with that power. Comment is super- 
fluous. 

To broach the subject of such a naval increase as. 
contemplated in the foregoing would doubtless raise 
at once the old cry of " Militarism." But that is an 
idle cry where the navy is concerned. Armies and 
generals have often proved dangerous to liberty; navies 
and admirals never. In all the world's history we find 
no instance of a navy overturning government and 
usurping power. For Monk, who might be cited 
against this contention, was a soldier, not a seaman. 
Navies may defend a land; they cannot conquer it. 
Vast standing armies, such as Russia's and Germany's, 
are perfectly in accord with the spirit of absolutism, 
and will serve to strengthen and perpetuate that spirit. 
But Anglo-Saxon civilisation, it was decreed, has been 
and is free from that curse. A navy stands on a dif- 
ferent plane, and we must have a much more powerful 
one in order to hold what we have and to acquire new 
power. Our two long sea frontages, while conferring 



250 The Race is to the Wise 

on us great blessings and limitless potentialities, make 
it also incumbent to protect them by walls of steel, 
walls better adapted for defence than the Great Wall 
of China, walls movable upon an enemy thousands of 
miles away at the mere pressure of an electric button. 



CHAPTER XVII 
RIVALS IN THE PACIFIC— BRITISH 

Political and commercial sagacity usually go to- 
gether. Great Britain reached the zenith of her polit- 
ical power about the middle of the last century, pre- 
cisely at the time she ruled supreme in trade and manu- 
facture. Since then she has virtually lived on her 
prestige. Comparatively speaking, she has retro- 
graded. In 1850 she held in the hollow of her hand 
the fate of all Europe, and nothing was done without 
her full consent. The United States was then a sec- 
ond-class power, lying a long way off, with slow 
steamer communication, with a small population dis- 
tracted by internal issues, and having only just set out 
on conquering the vast continent, having no concern 
and taking no interest in European affairs. Russia 
had only one-third its present population. Germany 
was split up into small fragments, each working at 
cross-purposes with the other. France had just seen 
another revolution drowned in blood. Proud Albion, 
secure behind her white cliffs, and with the whole 
world tributary to her solid merchants in the City, 
looked on with a somewhat scornful smile and felt 
herself the paramount power on the globe. 

But the world " do move." The year 1904 wit- 
nesses a very different spectacle. Across the ocean a 
lusty young giant has grasped the sceptre which has 
fallen from inept hands. Our population is almost 

251 



252 The Race is to the Wise 

threefold that of England, and it will soon be treble 
that of Great Britain. Our wealth far exceeds that of 
the older nation. In trade and industry we have be- 
come more than England's rival — her master. In her 
own home market she can no longer compete with us 
in a number of those essential products in which Eng- 
land, a decade or two ago, enjoyed practical monopoly. 
In fine, the day of British trade supremacy is over. 
She is now bending all her efforts to retain as much 
as she may of what she holds. 

Across the Channel, another great power has arisen, 
also a keen rival, and in this case the Briton has not 
even the poor satisfaction of acknowledging defeat by 
men who have sprung from his own loins. England 
saw the achievement of German unity and the found- 
ing of a young and vigorous empire with mingled 
feelings. But these feelings turned to venom and 
hatred when she began to observe that the growth and 
further consolidation of this young empire meant the 
loss of much profitable trade to her. 

In volume of foreign trade, it is true, Great Britain 
is still far ahead of the United States (the figure for 
Great Britain being $3,559,076,200, and for the United 
States $2,417,950,539), but in exports we already 
equal her. Another few years, and our foreign trade, 
too, will have attained such heights as to leave her far 
behind us in the whole race. Besides, so far, our 
foreign trade has been but small compared with our 
domestic. 

There are observable plain signs of British material 
decadence, and this decadence seems to have unfavour- 
ably influenced British character as well. Witness the 
dog-in-the-manger policy which England has persist- 
ently followed towards Germany. Instead of giving 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 253 

her poorer Teuton cousin — whom she had looked down 
upon for centuries — a lift, she put all the stones in his 
way she could. She has never found it in her heart 
to forgive her one-time humble relative on the conti- 
nent his new prosperity. His colonial ambitions she 
hindered wherever possible. For successful German 
competition in trade she sought to account by crying 
down the quality of German wares — " muck-and- 
tuck " trade the English called it — and said that Ger- 
many was turning out merely cheap imitations of Eng- 
lish goods and selling them under a piratical flag. To 
remedy this alleged grievance, Mr. Williams published 
his much-advertised book, and Parliament passed a 
law on " Made in Germany." But the cure was worse 
than the disease. " Made in Germany " became a 
trademark all the more valuable to England's com- 
petitor, and Germany continued to forge ahead. 

The German steamer lines made better time and 
gave greater comfort to their passengers; therefore, 
thy did a better business. The disgruntled Briton put 
it all on the score of imaginary and heavy government 
subsidies. But that did not help the matter. 

All these are plain signs of decadence. Where now 
are that sturdy British manliness and independence, 
that much- vaunted fairness to an opponent? 

In the Orient, this British decadence is seen most 
conspicuously. England has been busy undoing the 
work of a century in upbuilding commercial and polit- 
ical supremacy in the Orient. Senator Beveridge, in 
his recent interesting book, speaks of " a drugged and 
cocained slumber," a " sinful inactivity " of the Briton 
in the whole of Far Asia. And as in Far Asia it is 
in Central Asia and in Turkey. Persia, Afghanistan, 
Turkestan, Khiva, and Bokhara — one by one England 



254 The Race is to the Wise 

has stood by, and without a murmur allowed Russia to 
incorporate or overawe these countries. Since the 
Pamir commission, of unsavoury memory, England 
has done nothing to impede Russian advance. She has 
allowed everything English in the East to go to rack 
and ruin. Towards France, her old-time foe, she has 
become modest — almost humble. Fashoda marked a 
last flickering of her old energy. In Africa, she is now 
trying to come to an understanding with the aggressive 
Gaul ; but Tonkin, Annam, Indo-China, and Madagas- 
car, besides a number of valuable islands in Oceanica, 
she let the Frenchman swallow without lifting a hand. 

But it is worst of all in China. After selling to the 
Germans line after line of steamers plying in Far 
Asian waters, and seeing the trade go with the flag, 
she has lost her last fastness in the Celestial Empire. 
To-day, English supremacy in the whole Yang Tse 
valley is gone. But a few years ago that was still 
held to be an English sphere of influence. Now, more 
German trade goes up and down the Yang Tse, that 
main artery of China, than English and French com- 
bined. 

The clear eye of the British statesman seems to be 
obscured, seeing, as through a glass, darkly. Look 
at this present war. It gave England for the first time 
a splendid chance to balk, for good and all, Russian 
advance in Asia. Does she improve it? On the con- 
trary, King Edward offers Russia, a power whose 
statecraft and diplomacy are proverbially tainted with 
duplicity, to adjust all pending differences. She 
leaves her ally, Japan, in the lurch and tries to make 
a compact with her ally's enemy at a time when the 
latter is fighting for his very life. Moreover, Eng- 
land declares her willingness to take Russia's word in 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 255 

such an understanding only a couple of months after 
that same Russia had broken her solemn pledge to 
England and the United States to withdraw from 
Manchuria. Can political folly go further? 

This same England, then, will be one of our chief 
rivals, perhaps the chief one, in the Pacific. It would 
be an immense task, and one requiring a big book by 
itself, to go here into statistical details, giving a com- 
parison between British and American material re- 
sources, trade, and prospects of future trade. Nor is 
this necessary for our purpose. It will be admitted at 
the outset that to compete successfully hereafter with 
the Briton in the Pacific will be no easy matter, even 
after due allowance be made for that strange drowsi- 
ness and lack of energy which have of late years seized 
the Englishman in the East. With a merchant marine 
of 16,006,374 in aggregate tonnage, exceeding by far 
that of all the other nations of the globe combined, 
with banking institutions everywhere, and many mil- 
lions of capital invested in every country, with old-es- 
tablished firms in every port and in every inland town 
of any importance, and with the immense prestige still 
clinging to her name, England, on the face of it, has 
even an immense advantage over us in the coming 
struggle for commercial predominance. This initial 
advantage is greatly strengthened by the fact that 
England has spun over the earth a network of colonial 
possessions, large and small, and planted with unerring 
instinct at those points where trade moves most rapidly 
and navigation is most profitably followed. 

Nevertheless, there are several elements of great im- 
portance which make for England's ultimate defeat. 

One of these is the evident disheartenment and loss 
of virile aggressiveness which have come over the 



256 The Race is to the Wise 

British merchant. To-day, he is a creature moving 
slowly and cautiously, wedded to habits and methods 
of the past, taking his ease and sticking to his fatalistic 
shibboleth : " In the long run Old England can't be 
beaten ! Old England will always remain Old Eng- 
land ! " And though the fact stares him in the face 
that this is a fallacy, he still believes in this worn-out 
creed. Such a man is no match for the American of 
to-day. 

Another British disadvantage is remoteness from 
the home market, that market which must remain his 
chief base of supply and distribution. That point has 
been dwelt on in a previous chapter. The completion 
of the Panama Canal will turn the geographical advan- 
tage which the Englishman has so far enjoyed, as 
against the American, in trading with the East and the 
whole of South America, into the reverse. There- 
after, we shall have the start of him by thousands of 
miles, meaning, of course, cheaper transportation and 
lower cost for American goods. As between New 
York and Liverpool, the distance to Shanghai (when 
the Panama Canal shall have been finished) will be 
150 miles to the advantage of New York, almost 2000 
miles less for New York to Yokohama, 1000 miles less 
to Manila, 3000 less to Honolulu, almost 3000 less to 
Auckland, and 1000 miles less to Melbourne. From 
our ports on the Pacific these differences in our favour 
will be much greater, and this is true in even a higher 
degree regarding trade in South and Central America. 
Moreover, the Philippines will soon serve us as a dis- 
tributing centre for the whole of Far Asia. 

Another point in our favour — and one which can be 
scarcely overestimated — is our manufacturing suprem- 
acy, now firmly established. The articles most in 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 257 

demand hereafter in the Pacific are precisely those 
which we can furnish more cheaply and of better 
quality than England can. 

In one of these chief commodities, namely, cotton 
goods, England is still in the lead. In 1903 there 
were counted in Great Britain 48,000,000 spindles, as 
against 23,000,000 in this country, 34,000,000 on the 
whole continent of Europe, 5,000,000 in British India, 
1,500,000 in Japan, and about 2,000,000 in the re- 
mainder of the world. In this particular, therefore, 
there is still distinct British predominance. Cotton- 
spinning is the last important phase of her industrial 
supremacy. But let us examine the facts a little more 
closely. In 1895, there were counted in the whole 
world, 93,500,000 spindles, and of this Britain had 
45,400,000, almost one-half. The United States had 
but 16,100,000. Four years later Britain showed still 
the same figure, while the United States showed an 
increase of 2,200,000 and the continent one of 4,300,- 
000. There is, then, a rapid increase in the cotton 
industry of the other leading commercial nations, and 
this increase is most pronounced and greatest in this 
country, amounting to 45 per cent, within eight years. 
England, in other words, sees her supremacy in the 
cotton industry swiftly waning. Another decade, and 
this last remaining pillar of her industrial strength 
will also have fallen. 

But by the term, " British rivals in the Pacific," was 
not meant the native Briton alone; under that caption 
must be included the men of the British colonies as 
well. With them the case stands differently. Let 
us examine this point more in detail. 

The Dominion of Canada, or, more precisely speak- 
ing, the far western part of it, will be one of our most 



258 The Race is to the Wise 

active rivals in the Pacific. To-day, the foreign trade 
of Canada amounts to $400,000,000. A great manu- 
facturing industry is increasing rapidly, agriculture 
expands steadily, and large quantities of timber and 
foodstuffs are yearly exported, chiefly to Great Britain, 
with the United States a good second. If the United 
States had not been short-sighted enough to hinder 
trade with Canada by unfavourable tariff conditions, 
and if the reciprocity treaty had been agreed to, it is 
safe to say that to-day Canada's exports and imports 
with this country would have been doubled. More- 
over, the annexation movement had gained consider- 
able headway in Canada, and if it had not been for 
our unfortunate tariff policy as regards that neigh- 
bour, it is very likely that this movement would have 
gone on increasing, instead of diminishing. What- 
ever the ultimate political fate of Canada may be, for 
the time at least nearly all Canadians have shelved the 
idea of amalgamation with this country. Increasing 
American immigration to Canada, as well as the con- 
stantly growing investments of American capital there, 
and the decrease in political power and prestige of the 
mother country, are factors, however, which in the 
long run must tell in favour of such amalgamation. 
As it is, Canada is one of the most important countries, 
commercially speaking, we have dealings with. For 
the purposes of this book, though, it is that portion 
of the Dominion called British Columbia which is of 
interest to us. 

It has been more neglected by the home government 
than almost any other portion of the British colonial 
empire. And yet British Columbia is a land of great 
possibilities. In wealth of natural resources it is not 
exceeded by any portion of the United States. Its 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 259 

population shows the true Yankee spirit — indomitable 
enterprise, tireless energy, and great shrewdness. In 
the course of time, British Columbia is almost certain 
to become one of our most dreaded rivals in the Pacific 
trade. 

Even as it is, her various undertakings in that line 
are not to be undervalued. Victoria shows itself 
a wide-awake competitor of Seattle and San Fran- 
cisco, and both the splendid steamer line plying be- 
tween that port and the Far East, and the Canadian 
Pacific Railroad, have to be taken into account in all 
future reckonings made by this nation in the Pacific 
commerce of the near future. An idea of the natural 
wealth of British Columbia awaiting exploitation may 
be gained when the fact is mentioned that, of its 382,- 
000 square miles, fully three-fourths are covered with 
forests. The density of these forests is extraordinary. 
As much as 500,000 cubic feet of wood have been 
taken from a single acre. The lumber industry is 
bound to become an immense source of wealth, once 
the canal is opened. The Douglas fir abounds every- 
where, with hemlock in the north, and there is abun- 
dant water power. The total mineral production of 
British Columbia for 1900 was slightly in excess of 
$16,000,000, being gold, silver, lead, copper, and coal. 
Coal beds of fine quality and immense capacity only 
await the miner and a profitable market. In the 
future Pacific trade this fine coal will be an important 
item. 

The only serious handicap at present for British 
Columbia in a race with this country is the sparseness 
of its population. With an area double that of France ; 
with 1000 miles of seaboard and many fine harbours; 
with marvellous resources in its soil ; with great treas^ 



260 The Race is to the Wise 

ures in its waters; with wonderful forests; with great 
mineral wealth awaiting development, and with a cli- 
mate which produces a race as sturdy and bold as the 
American, it can boast of but a few hundred thousand 
of inhabitants. Like our own Pacific slope, British 
Columbia as yet is suffering from " distance." It lies 
thousands of miles away from the Atlantic coast, and 
thousands more from the island kingdom whence it 
draws its settlers and its modest measure of political 
influence. 

Of all British possessions, British Columbia will be 
most benefited by the opening of the Panama Canal. 
In almost like measure as for our own Far West, her 
people will be brought nearer to Eastern and Western 
markets. There is no reason why British Columbia 
should not compete on favourable terms with the 
United States in the great Asiatic markets, which are 
on the eve of an era of development. What she lacks 
is men and money; but even under present condi- 
tions she will grasp and hold her share of the future 
trade. 

Another and more important competitor of ours in 
the Pacific will be Australia. Australia is nearly the 
size of the United States proper. Her climate presents 
great varieties. The north is tropical — almost unin- 
habitable for white men — while the coasts of the east, 
south, and west enjoy a fine and healthy climate, hot 
summers, but bracing winters. The great trouble is 
the alternation of droughts and floods, the former 
being the more prevalent. The arid part of Australia 
covers the whole interior, amounting to five-sixths of 
the continent, while the region with an annual rainfall 
of but ten to twenty inches makes another large belt. 
Sufficient rain for agriculture falls in only about one- 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 261 

tenth of the whole territory. The following map is 
taken from Mr. A. R. Colquhoun's " Mastery of the 
Pacific " : 




Rainfall Map of Australia 

Copyright, 1902, by The Macmillan Company 

It is thus certain that Australia can never become 
either a very prosperous or a very populous country, 
measuring her prospects with ours. Nature has inter- 
posed insurmountable obstacles not to be overcome by 
man. Irrigation is sure to be introduced on a larger 
scale than at present. But in such a riverless country 



262 The Race is to the Wise 

as Australia, given, besides, the geological formation 
of the continent, even that stratagem will never accom- 
plish much. There is only one navigable river, the 
Murray, in all Australia. 

The new Australian Commonwealth, unifying for 
political and partly for economic purposes all the col- 
onies, seems a step in the right direction. Neverthe- 
less, the present population — 3,600,000 — does not grow 
rapidly. The rate of natural increase is small; in the 
second and third generations it rapidly declines. And, 
as a curious feature of a country of such enormous size, 
with a very sparse population, it deserves mention that 
in all the colonies, but particularly in the most pro- 
ductive parts of Australia, and in the fertile fringe 
skirting the eastern coast, emigration is going on and 
immigration is discouraged in every possible way. In 
several of the colonies emigration actually exceeds im- 
migration. As a future rival of the United States — 
a bright day-dream which fanciful Australians indulge 
in — this youngest of the continents does not come into 
serious consideration. 

Far more natural advantages are enjoyed by New 
Zealand than by the continent proper. As yet, how- 
ever, this double island is very thinly settled, and its 
great natural resources are largely undeveloped. New 
Zealand is, therefore, a very promising field for the 
immigrant, but in Pacific trade, as our rival, she can- 
not possibly play an important figure in the near 
future. 

In Australia there are railroads with a mileage of 
15,000, and with very small traffic. In New Zealand 
this mileage is 2300. 

As an exporting and importing region Australasia 
is, however, of considerable importance. It will afford 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 263 

a fine market for American goods. Her total foreign 
trade, in 1903, amounted to $891,000,000. Of this 
the most important of the colonies, New South Wales, 
claimed $272,000,000, with Victoria next, with $191,- 
000,000, and New Zealand, with $105,000,000. 

From the present trend it can be clearly discerned 
that Australia will develop on political and economic 
lines of her own, distinct from the British. Her tariff 
policy, aiming at more varied sources of supply and 
greater markets for her own products, shows this. An 
Australian species of Monroe doctrine, claiming " Aus- 
tralia for the Australians," and also directed against 
German and French power in the Pacific, is developing 
rapidly. 

Australia's main product is still wool, cereals being 
next in importance. In this way she does not compete- 
with us as an exporting country, and while she is ac- 
tively trying for Far Eastern markets, that need not 
trouble us seriously. On the other hand, Australia 
imports chiefly articles of industry. The mother coun- 
try still sells her the great bulk of these, but the Ameri- 
can share of the remainder of her foreign trade has 
already risen to 34 per cent. Hereafter, we may look 
for a far larger share, under the more favourable con- 
ditions opened up for us by the Panama Canal. 

The two great British trade-distributing centres of 
the Far East, Singapore and Hong Kong, occupy alto- 
gether unique positions. Nowhere else in the world 
under similar conditions can be found commercial and 
strategic posts of equal value. Both are situated on 
islands, but whereas Hong Kong is steep and rocky, 
Singapore lies low. Both are important as shipping 
centres, but Hong Kong, although the medium for a 
considerable Chinese trade, is to a great extent cut off 



264 The Race is to the Wise 

from its natural hinterland, the great southern trading 
centres of China. Singapore is the outlet for the 
flourishing trade of the greater portion of the Malay 
peninsula. Hong Kong lies next, to a great undevel- 
oped estate in Chinese hands, while Singapore is sit- 
uated close by a territory which, to all intents and pur- 
poses, is British. 

These two important trading centres, jointly and 
singly, will prove a thorn in the flesh to the American 
trader in the Pacific. Their merchants have shown 
hitherto much enterprise, and a very large percentage 
of the Chinese trade is in the hands of Hong Kong, 
while Singapore taps the whole wealth of the Malay 
world at a very convenient point, and hence holds a 
goodly portion of it in its grasp. 

The prosperity of Singapore, however, is in very 
large measure due to the lack of enterprise of the Dutch 
merchants of Java and the surrounding islands, as well 
as to the worse than unenterprising economic policy 
of the Netherlands government. The Dutch East 
Indies, under the sway of another nationality of more 
energy, such, for instance, as the German or American, 
would very soon cut the ground from under the feet 
of the Singapore trader. Indeed, during the last five 
years, since Americans and Germans have seriously 
begun to exploit commercially the Far East, the trade 
of Singapore, or at least the British portion of it, has 
not only shown no increase, but an absolute decline, 
small though it be. 

The case is similar with Hong Kong. There it is 
the German that has cut in very uncomfortably into 
the big British pudding. At first, the English mer- 
chant of Hong Kong smiled derisively at the advent 
of his new rival. He pointed with satisfaction to the 



Rivals in the Pacific — British 265 

small bulk and the smaller profits of the trade which 
the newly arriving German was able to secure. But 
he has changed his tune somewhat of late, for the 
German is now firmly established in Hong Kong, and 
he obtains an ever-increasing share of the Hong Kong 
commerce. There is no reason why hereafter the 
American should not join the pair and make a happy 
third. There is plenty of room for him, and Hong 
Kong in a short while will be nearer to the New 
Yorker and a great deal nearer to the San Franciscan 
than to the men of Liverpool and London. 

Summarising, therefore, all the available facts tend- 
ing to show the relative chances which the British mer- 
chant (both of the home and colonial varieties) and 
his American compeer will enjoy in the trade of this 
whole promising region, the scale seems to tip in favour 
of the latter, though it will take much hard work, 
capital, and persistence to win and hold predominance. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

RIVALS IN THE PACIFIC— GERMAN, FRENCH, 
AND JAPANESE 

Of all our future rivals in the Pacific, Germany will 
be, perhaps, the most dangerous. With the Briton 
our fight will be to wrest a slice more or less large 
from his present trade. The Briton, in other words, 
will be on the defensive ; Germany, like ourselves, will 
be on the offensive. Her people are straining every 
nerve and sinew to conquer new fields of commerce. 
An exact parallel of our own case, she must increase 
her export trade in order to live, and in order to avoid 
industrial and labour catastrophes of frightful effect. 
Her ambitions are young, like ours; she is not sated 
with power and spoils; her enterprise, like ours, must 
be directed to virgin markets and neglected fields ; the 
ever-growing pressure of her dense population impels 
her in all directions where the right of pre-emption is 
not exercised in prohibitive fashion. Her men belong 
to a virile, unspent race. Her monarch, the Kaiser, 
furnishes enormous forces of propulsion; nothing 
escapes him, and in one of his speeches, a couple of 
years ago, he said that it was the duty of every Ger- 
man " to find spots and crannies on the whole globe 
where the German could drive in a nail, and on it sus- 
pend his armour of commercial enterprise." 

We must look, therefore, to a bitter and determined 
struggle with the German for supremacy in the East 

266 



German, French, and Japanese 267 

and extreme West. Let us examine this German 
armour a bit more closely. 

The commercial and political rise of Germany has 
been one of the marvels of the closing decades of the 
nineteenth century. Since the conclusion of her peace 
with France, in 187 1, and the establishment of a united 
fatherland and a vigorous empire under Hohenzollern 
leadership, Germany has doubled and trebled her re- 
sources and powers. Just a few points in illustration. 

In 1870 Germany was mainly an agricultural coun- 
try, and her commerce was relatively unimportant. 
Her industries were in an undeveloped state, and were 
carried on with extreme caution and on small capital. 
From this, within thirty years, she had become Eng- 
land's chief rival. Between 1890 and 1900 the volume 
of her import and export trade rose from $1,800,000,- 
000 to $2,650,000,000, an increase of 50 per cent. 
Since 1870, her population rose 50 per cent., to 57,- 
000,000. 

As to capital, the growth of Germany has been even 
more surprising. In 1900, British capital invested in 
foreign countries amounted, in round figures, to $10,- 
000,000,000, and the interest drawn from it to $450,- 
000,000. Of this, $800,000,000 was invested in this 
country, about $3,000,000,000 in foreign railroads, 
and $200,000,000 in foreign mines. 

For Germany there are precise figures at hand. 
These show total German foreign investments, in 1900, 
of $5,200,000,000. Of this sum, $3,400,000,000 were 
held in foreign securities and $1,800,000,000 engaged 
in foreign industrial enterprises, such as railroads, 
mines, factories, street-car lines, etc. ; and of this sum 
$500,000,000 alone in South America, $250,000,000 
each in North America and Africa. This, then, shows 



268 The Race is to the Wise 

Germany with more than one-half the total foreign 
investments of Great Britain. And let us keep in 
mind that the accumulation of this enormous super- 
abundance of capital was the result of thirty years' 
efforts, or, more properly speaking, of fifteen years', 
for only since 1885 has Germany launched out seriously 
on her new industrial and commercial career. Truly, 
there is only one parallel in modern history to this phe- 
nomenal growth — Japan. 

The most illuminating illustration of this growth is 
found in the rise and progress of her chief private 
bank, the Deutsche Bank, in Berlin. In 1870, this insti- 
tution started out with a modest capital of $3,750,000. 
In 1 90 1, its capital had increased to $50,000,000, the 
volume of its business to almost $13,000,000,000, and 
its dividends to 1 1 per cent. This bank has issued loans 
for Austria, Russia, Chile, Italy, Mexico, the United 
States, Sweden, Egypt, Roumania, and other coun- 
tries. It has founded several hundred industrial enter- 
prises, many of them in far-away countries, such as 
South America, Central America, China, etc., and 
financed other enterprises, like the German-Atlantic 
Bank, the German-Asiatic Bank, the largest German 
electric and mining societies, the Anatolian and Mace- 
donian railroads, and, to a large extent, the Northern 
Pacific Railroad as well. The leading position of Ger- 
many in electric enterprises of every description is 
largely due to it. In a word, it is an epitome of Ger- 
man industrial and commercial progress during recent 
years. 

A faithful thermometer of this growth is furnished 
by Germany's commercial relations with this country. 
In 1882, she bought but $28,000,000 worth of us, and 
in 1900 she took $250,000,000 of American goods. 



German, French, and Japanese 269 

The above facts are taken from the author's book, 
"Germany: the Welding of a World Power," pub- 
lished late in 1902. But the facts and figures for the 
time since elapsed emphasise the contention made still 
more strongly. Despite a financial depression in Ger- 
many, her foreign trade has grown instead of dimin- 
ishing. In 1903, it amounted to almost $2,800,- 
000,000. 

In this present instance we are mainly concerned 
with the future possibilities of German trade in the 
Pacific. A few figures will show them. 

German export to China has risen at a more rapid 
rate even than has American export to that country, 
from $7,500,000, in 1892, to $14,500,000 in 1900, 
$16,300,000 in 1901, and $17,400,000 in 1903. To 
Japan her trade, in 1892, was only $3,890,000; in 1900 
it was $17,600,000, and in 1903, $18,470,000. To 
the British East Indies she exported, in 1892, not quite 
$8,000,000 worth; in 1900, something in excess of 
$17,000,000, and, in 1903, a round $18,000,000. To 
the Dutch East Indies, Germany exported, in 1892, 
$3,700,000; in 1900, $6,780,000, and, in 1903, $7,- 
100,000. As to Australia, next to this country, Ger- 
many has become the largest of the foreign importers. 
In 1892, her imports there were computed at $5,120,- 
000; in 1900, at $12,050,000, and, in 1903, at $14,- 
500,000. To the Philippines Germany exported, in 
1892, but $700,000 worth; in 1900, $1,600,000, and, 
in 1903, $1,720,000. 

We see, then, that all through the Far East, Ger- 
many has made very rapid advance in her export trade, 
exceeding ours in not a few instances. Let us ex- 
amine how the case stands in South and Central 
America. 



270 The Race is to the Wise 

To Argentina Germany exported, in 1892, $9,500,- 
000 worth of goods ; in 1900, $16,000,000, and, in 1903, 
$18,200,000. To Brazil, in 1892, $12,750,000; in 
1900 (owing to financial depression in Brazil), $11,- 
500,000, but in 1903, $13,850,000. To Chile, in 1892, 
she exported $4,900,000; in 1900, $10,100,000, and, 
in 1903, $11,400,000. To Mexico, in 1892, $2,950,- 
000; in 1900, $7,050,000, and, in 1903, $8,060,000. 
To Uruguay, in 1892, $1,500,000; in 1900, $3,000,- 
000, and, in 1903, $3,650,000. To Peru Germany 
exported, in 1892, $1,450,000; in 1900, $2,500,000, 
and, in 1903, $3,100,000. To Central America, all 
told, in 1892, $1,400,000; in 1900, $1,670,000. To 
Ecuador, in 1892, $300,000; in 1900, $1,450,000, and, 
in 1903, $1,720,000. To Venezuela, in 1892, $1,200,- 
000; in 1900, the same amount, and, in 1903 (despite 
hostile feeling because of German armed intervention), 
$1,650,000. 

The above figures, however, do not tell the whole 
tale. Under the statistical system adopted by the Ger- 
man foreign office in computing exports and imports, 
those leaving port from non-German parts, such, for 
instance, as Rotterdam and Antwerp, do not figure in 
these lists. The omissions thus made are quite con- 
siderable, as a very large portion of both exports from, 
and imports into, the western industrial provinces of 
Germany (particularly Westphalia and the Rhenish 
districts) go largely by way of the nearest ports on 
the North Sea, these being Antwerp and Rotterdam. 
That class of goods, therefore, appears under the head 
of Belgian and Dutch imports from, and exports to, 
Germany. It can only be estimated how large a propor- 
tion of the whole thus escapes the proper heading, but 
presumably it is fully 20 per cent. However, taking the 



German, French, and Japanese 271 

figures as they stand, the total volume of German ex- 
ports to South and Central America exceeds the figures 
for the United States. 

To this country Germany's exports have steadily 
increased. In 1892 they amounted to $85,790,000; in 
1900, to $109,880,000, and, in 1903, to $121,790,000. 
They are almost altogether industrial products. True, 
there has been and is a considerable balance of trade 
in our favour, but by no means proportionately as 
large as in the case of Great Britain. Furthermore, 
German industry still advances by leaps and bounds, 
and, on the whole, is proving itself superior to the 
British of these days. Besides, Germany, like this 
country, has drawn a wall of protection around her 
industry, while Great Britain is still adhering — and 
despite Mr. Chamberlain's protective tariff campaign 
will probably continue to adhere — to free trade. 

Another point. In a number of her chief exports 
Germany is competing in the markets of the Pacific 
with our own chief exports to those regions. In cotton 
goods, for instance, she was exporting, in 1892, $38,- 
000,000 worth; in 1900, $61,100,000 worth, and in 
1903, $66,300,000. In woollen goods, in 1892, she 
sent to foreign parts $53,860,000; in 1900, $59,050,- 
000, and, in 1903, $61,070,000. Machinery of every 
kind she sent out, in 1892, $15,500,000; in 1900, $58,- 
300,000, an increase of almost 400 per cent, within ten 
years. Of coal, she exported, in 1892, $24,950,000; 
in 1900, $53,970,000, and, in 1903, $55,300,000. Of 
hardware, Germany exported, in 1892, $15,150,000; 
in 1900, $34,507,000, and, in 1903, $36,785,000. Of 
the finer grades of steel and ironware, Germany ex- 
ported, in 1892, $6,090,000; in 1900, $17,650,000, 
and, in 1903, $18,350,000. She is also doing a trade 



272 The Race is to the Wise 

of some importance in the following articles : iron and 
steel billets, cement, steamers, and vessels of iron or 
steel, — whole or in parts, — rubber goods, cables for tele- 
graph, etc., rails, copper wire, cotton yarn, ironware, 
plates of malleable iron, brass and copper ware, leather 
goods and prepared leather, technical instruments and 
machine tools, etc., in all of which she is our direct 
competitor. In addition to all this, Germany of late 
is making systematic efforts to emancipate herself from 
the American monopoly in cotton. This is up-hill 
work, of course, and results of any magnitude may not 
be looked for for years to come. 

But in her own way, with much patience, fore- 
thought, and system, she has entered on this task. 
Within the last two years this is what has come of 
her endeavours in this line : 

In three of her African colonies, namely, German 
East Africa, Togo, and Kameroons, she has introduced 
cotton culture in a manner both practical and scientific. 
Her colonial department in Berlin first studied soil 
and climatic conditions, in order to determine the most 
suitable districts and methods for this culture. Next, 
she studied the labour question in these colonies, and 
decided on a number of steps to cure unfavourable con- 
ditions in this respect. The department followed this 
up by obtaining American experts in cotton culture. 
In all three of the colonies named she set to work, as 
overseers and superintendents, graduates from Booker 
T. Washington's practical and theoretical institutions 
in Alabama. These men, all of them of the coloured 
race and able to withstand the hot climate, were secured 
under ironclad contracts for a number of years. Then, 
with the help and instruction of these men, natives 
were trained in the raising of cotton, good results 



German, French, and Japanese 273 

being accomplished. Next, the same colonial .depart- 
ment made sure of the services of three or four white 
cotton planters from America. One of them, J. H. G. 
Becker, from Hockley, Texas, was put at the head of 
the whole enterprise in German East Africa, and has 
advanced cotton culture in that large colony in a re- 
markable degree. An additional step taken in this 
direction was the sending of young German farmers 
to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, 
to study there, practically and theoretically, the prob- 
lem of profitable cotton culture ; these men had all their 
expenses paid by the German government. 

In this whole matter the German government has 
had the active support of the various German chambers 
of commerce, as well as that of the colonial societies 
and individual promoters of the colonial policy of the 
empire. 

The cotton grown in the German colonies in Africa 
has so far been nearly altogether from Sea Island, seed, 
the best for the desired long staple, and it has been 
found well adapted to soil conditions there. 

The cotton crop of 1903, raised in the three German 
colonies named, has aggregated about 175,000 pounds. 
Some 50,000 of this were grown in German East 
Africa, while the remaining 125,000 were produced in 
Togo and Kameroons. Experiments have been made in 
German East Africa with White Egyptian cotton seed, 
and, largely due to the dry climate of that colony, have 
proved more successful than like attempts with Sea 
Island seed. For this year much new land has been 
put to cotton in all these three colonies, and it is sur- 
mised that the crop of 1904 will be at least 400,000 
pounds. All the cotton produced has been readily 
sold at a good profit in the German home market, and 



274 The Race is to the Wise 

it is said that this German colonial cotton is fully the 
equal of our own best varieties. 

These, of course, are only beginnings, and for years 
to come the German colonial output of cotton will not 
measurably influence the world's market or compete 
with our own. But everything must have a begin- 
ning, and this one looks, indeed, very promising from 
the German point of view. 

Next, let us look at the German colonies. Alto- 
gether, they are about 1,000,000 square miles in area. 
They are, therefore, five times as large as the empire 
itself. Germany needs lands of her own to which 
to divert the stream of her emigration. For fifty 
years that has flowed primarily to the United States ; 
and then (leaving out of account southern Brazil and 
Argentina) to other English-speaking countries, 
chiefly Canada and Australia. In that way, millions 
of these German emigrants have been absorbed into 
the economic and political life of Germany's main 
rivals, — Great Britain and the United States, — and 
have strengthened the latter. Since 1870 German 
emigration has footed up almost 4,000,000. 

The objective point of an emigrant depends on a 
number of considerations, and it cannot be altered in a 
mechanical way, at the mere dictum of a government. 
The German colonies are all located within the tropical 
or subtropical belt, and they offer obstacles not to be 
overcome; above all, climatic ones. Thus, in spite of 
persistent urgings, the tide of German emigration runs 
on in its old course. Altogether, within that million 
of square miles, there are less than 60,000 Germans, 
all told; and that includes the colonial troops and offi- 
cials. The one German colony which seemed suitable, 
at least on a limited scale, for the German immigrant 



German, French, and Japanese 275 

—German Southwest Africa to wit — is just now the 
scene of the first serious colonial war the empire has 
had on its hands. It will hereafter be shunned by 
the German emigrant in his quest for a new home. 

But Kiao Chao, Germany's colony in China, must be 
excepted from the above remarks. Properly speaking, 
this colony is not a field for German immigration, 
either. Its territory is too small for that, being only 
about 300 square miles. But in other respects it is 
very important. For Kiao Chao has as vast hinter- 
land the whole province of Shan Tung, with its 38,- 
000,000 of inhabitants and its enormous mineral re- 
sources. Of these we spoke before. If Germany is 
allowed to carry out her plans, Kiao Chao will become 
— after the manner of our programme in regard to 
the Philippines — the centre of Germany's political and 
economic expansion policy in the Far East. She 
means to exploit, for her own use exclusively, this 
province of Shan Tung. She uses now Kiao Chao as 
a base for her naval and military forces in the Far 
East. The chief city of the colony, Tsing Tao, far 
more accessible for navigation than the town of Kiao 
Chao itself, and with a splendid harbour, Germany has 
transformed, since 1902, from a miserable Chinese 
town of mud hovels into a modern city equipped with 
every improvement, public and private. 

The Reichstag is appropriating every year a sum 
of $5,000,000 or more for the enlargement and im- 
provement of this new city and its harbour. The latter 
has one of the safest and largest roadsteads on that 
part of the China coast for a hundred miles or so either 
way. But this harbour is being deepened and im- 
proved still further. The intention is to make of 
Tsing Tao a second Hong Kong. It is meant to be- 



276 



The Race is to the Wise 



come the second most important, or, if possible, the 
first, distributing centre for China. In one respect 
Tsing Tao offers better facilities for this than Hong 
Kong. It lies on the mainland, and not, like Hong 
Kong, on an island separated from China proper by 
the sea. It has a densely populated hinterland, offer- 
ing every opportunity for enormous industrial devel- 
opment. This development, in fact, has already begun. 
The Shan Tung Railroad Company is now completing 
the first of the large railroads connecting Tsing Tao 



PLAN OF TSING TAO 

eu Chief Harbor of KiaoChau Colony 

I obTebvatoby From Plans furnished by German N»tj Depf- 




with the interior. This company is made up of about 
a score of Germany's leading financiers, although quite 
a number of small capitalists are among the share- 
holders. By June, 1904, this railroad will have 
reached its terminal point, Tsi Nan Fu, the provincial 
capital of Shan Tung, about 350 miles inland. Several 
railroad projects are afoot in Germany, the purpose 
being to construct a network of railroads for the com- 
plete industrial and commercial exploitation of the 
province. The Shan Tung Mining Company has 
begun, under a concession granted by the imperial gov- 
ernment in Peking, to work the big coal and iron 



German, French, and Japanese 277 

deposits in the district of Wei Hsien, as well as those 
of I Tshou Fu and Po Shan, and with all these points 
the railroad has already direct connection. 

Three other large German companies have been or- 
ganised within a year, these being the Kiao Chao So- 
ciety, the German-Chinese Silk Industrial Company, 
and the German Society for Mining and Industry. All 
three of them purpose to assist in the exploitation of 
the province. Among its members are also some of 
the large German merchants and bankers resident in 
China, above all the firm of Arnhold, Karberg & Com- 
pany, of Shanghai, Tien Tsin, and Foo Chow. Some 
six or seven other companies, made up of German cap- 
italists, are now forming for the same purpose. 

Secretary Hay seems to be watching this rapid de- 
velopment of German commercial and industrial in- 
fluence in China with a wary eye. It is possible that 
at the close of this present war, when a sort of settle- 
ment of Chinese affairs is to be made on a new basis, 
this German colony of Kiao Chao will form one of the 
points of international discussion and adjustment. 

As to other vantage-points of Germany in Pacific 
waters, she possesses some which will help her very 
materially in realising her ambitions. She owns a part 
of New Guinea, that facing in the direction of China 
and Japan. This colony, large and of fine natural re- 
sources as it is, has so far been left almost completely 
undeveloped, but hereafter it will afford the German 
policy in Far Asia another base. The Carolines and 
Marianes will likewise become of importance to her, 
both as coaling stations for her navy and in a com- 
mercial sense. The same remark applies to the so- 
called Bismarck Archipelago, a large group of fertile 
islands within the sphere of influence of Australia. 



278 The Race is to the Wise 

The groups of islands known as the Marshall, Brown, 
and Providence isles, belong administratively within the 
sphere of Samoa. Of this last-named group of islands 
— Samoa — Germany obtained the lion's share in virtue 
of the tripartite agreement in 1899. The larger 
islands of this group, Upolu and Savaii, she is now 
industrially developing at a fair rate of speed. Both 
for naval and merchant marine purposes Samoa is of 
great importance to Germany. 

We see, therefore, that Germany has a number of 
workable bases of operation for her commercial and 
political ambitions in the Pacific. It must be admitted, 
however, that these are far inferior in every respect 
both to the American and British ones. 

And now a word about the other points that tell in 
the equipment of Germany for the coming strenuous 
race in the Pacific. 

First, the merchant. The German merchant is more 
of a cosmopolitan, and more ready to make allowances 
for the peculiar characteristics of other nations, than 
either the Briton or the American. That much the 
geographical location of Germany has done for him. 
It has saved him from isolation of thought and insular 
habits. He is scientific and thorough in his methods, 
usually a polyglot ; he has a great fund of patience, in- 
tense application, and methodical habit. He is content 
with small profits and long credit whenever he cannot 
do better. As the phrase goes, he " studies to please " 
his customer. He does not insist on speaking German 
with a Spanish or English-speaking purchaser. 
Neither does he try to force his likes and dislikes on 
his customer. He sends his wares to foreign markets, 
South America, or China, exactly as his customer likes 
to have them. He puts them up in parcels, packages, 



German, French, and Japanese 279 

or boxes of the size and weight most convenient, and 
if instructions or explanations accompany his goods he 
has them printed in the language of the country. 

As an amusing illustration of this, it may be men- 
tioned that all the Latin-American countries get their 
flags and bunting in the national colours from Ger- 
many, and when, some years ago, memorial medals 
celebrating the anniversary of certain patriotic events 
in South America made their appearance, on their rim 
could be read : " Made in Germany." 

Under these circumstances it is no wonder that Ger- 
many has made such enormous advance in Latin- 
American trade. But relatively speaking, the advance 
has been much greater in the Far East, more particu- 
larly in China. To conquer that country commercially, 
a mixed commission was sent out by the Kaiser in 
1897. It was made up of practical merchants, as well 
as economists, writers, and government officials. After 
an extensive tour this commission returned home, and 
each member of it wrote out his own report as to which 
plan seemed most feasible to him to enlarge present 
German trade in China and introduce new branches 
of it. The German consular service in China is by all 
odds the best, barring the American. A few years 
ago several existing British steamer lines that had 
ceased to do a paying business were purchased by the 
North German Lloyd. These lines plied between ports 
of minor importance in Malaysia. They immediately 
began to pay under their new owners. Next, the 
North German Lloyd and the big Hamburg-America 
line reorganised steamer communication between Eu- 
rope and Far Asia, and did it so well as to beat at 
every point — speed, comfort, and price — the old famed 
British P. & O. line, although the latter had virtually 



280 The Race is to the Wise 

had a monopoly of this traffic for several generations. 
Several new steamer lines were also started by German 
companies, these attending to a goodly fraction of the 
coastwise traffic between Shanghai and north and south 
of that main Chinese emporium. Thus it has hap- 
pened that the German flag at present is the one 
most frequently and numerously seen in Chinese 
waters. 

By similar methods Germany has not precisely con- 
quered, but obtained a very large share of the trade 
along the whole Yang Tse. On that lordly river, too, 
the rule of the Briton was broken. Two German 
steamer lines now make regular and frequent runs be- 
tween Shanghai and Han Kow, 650 miles up. They 
touch at every more important point, and have suc- 
ceeded within a few years in capturing the good half 
of the former British trade. 

Banking facilities are another point which the Ger- 
man has very well attended to in China. The Deutsche 
Bank made a start in that direction in 1895. Since 
then this institution alone has founded twelve branch 
houses in Far Asian ports. Of late its directors have 
added to these one in Tien Tsin and another in New 
Chwang. A group of Berlin banks, of which the Dis- 
conto Society is the leading one, have since followed 
the lead of the Deutsche Bank. 

The same methods as those outlined above have been 
employed by Germany in securing a good slice of the 
foreign trade of Australia and that of Japan. The 
number of German firms in both these countries is 
steadily on the increase. The German consuls keep 
people at home well informed about every new opening 
for trade that offers. In Australia the considerable 
German element among the immigrants is another help 



German, French, and Japanese 281 

in the same direction, particularly as there also exists 
a well-edited German press. 

After all these advantages and achievements of Ger- 
many it remains to mention the disadvantages. These 
are few, but very serious. First, the great distance 
that separates Germany from these regions. The 
Panama Canal, as was pointed out before, will render 
this difficulty much more pronounced, and turn it to 
a distinct American advantage. Next, Germany's nat- 
ural resources do not begin to compare with ours. All 
her skill and brains, all her energy and enterprise, can- 
not make up for this deficiency. Again, Germany is 
inferior to this country in manufacturing methods. 
Another point: the adequate development of her 
colonies is seriously retarded, perhaps rendered impos- 
sible, by that system of bureaucratic interference and 
supervision which has become a second nature to Ger- 
many's government, and which hampers at every step 
the initiative of the individual German. Lastly must 
be mentioned the fact that, in the matter of a navy, 
Germany cannot possibly keep step with this nation. 
Her home territory is surrounded by foes — or at least 
rivals. At our present rate of naval increase, Germany 
will be left far in the rear within another ten years. 
And, even if this were not so, Germany at no time 
would dare to deprive her coasts of the protection of 
her war vessels, both on the North Sea and the Baltic. 
Only one-half of her navy, at best, will be available 
for purposes of her foreign policy. And if it ever 
should come to a trial of strength between Germany 
and this country, it may be taken for granted that her 
navy would give a very good account of itself, but 
that, nevertheless, she would not have the ghost of a 
chance from the outset. In the Pacific we hold the 



282 The Race is to the Wise 

only mid-ocean bulwark, Honolulu, and without that 
Germany could not even approach our western coast 
because of lack of fuel. 

The clear-eyed men of Germany are recognising 
these points, and an almost ludicrous illustration of the 
spirit bred by this knowledge was given at the Reichs- 
tag session, on April 19 last. One of the leading 
delegates wound up his tale of woe by saying : " Our 
business people will soon have nothing to do but emi- 
grate to America and utilise their intelligence there to 
the detriment of their own countrymen." 

Of French ambitions in the Pacific it is hardly worth 
while to say much. All unbiassed judges of the French 
of to-day agree in calling them a decadent nation. A 
people which has made the " two-children system " 
part of its accepted sociologic code; the population of 
which, despite a considerable immigration, is practi- 
cally stationary, and which has neither genius nor 
liking for all those tasks which fall on the shoulders 
of an expanding nation, cannot be seriously reckoned 
a future rival in the Pacific or anywhere else. 

It may be admitted at once that if these self-imposed 
obstacles did not stand in the way, France would have 
very fine opportunities for competition in the Pacific. 
She has a number of colonies there, giving her stra- 
tegic and economic bases. She has much idle capital 
at home waiting for chances of safe and profitable in- 
vestment, and she has also a highly developed industry, 
one which is leading the world in a number of features. 

But when all this is admitted, it will not vitiate our 
contention. Besides, the national ambition of France 
of late years has turned to Africa as a field to engross 
what adventurous spirit she has left. 

Lastly, there is Japan. Doubtless, she will play 



German, French, and Japanese 283 

quite a respectable figure in the Pacific hereafter. She 
has a number of the elements necessary to win success 
— intelligence, adaptability, patience, and diligence, 
and the true mettle for a commercial and expanding 
nation. But these advantages are partially offset by 
points which tell against her. The decisive one is 
geographical in nature. Her island empire is too 
small in size. Her population must seek, and will 
doubtless find, new outlets. Corea she may acquire. 
The chances are against her acquisition of Manchuria. 
If that large Chinese province should, however, come 
into her possession, it would solve the population prob- 
lem for her, for Manchuria has space for five times 
the present population of Japan. The probability 
is that Japan, like Germany, will have to send mil- 
lions of her emigrants to other countries, there to be 
absorbed. 

Besides, even after her wonderful industrial rise, 
Japan is still a very poor country, with a scarcity of 
capital, small natural resources, and a very low scale 
of living, when comparing her with western countries. 
To change all this would in any event require another 
fifty years or more. Meanwhile, the United States, 
Germany, and Great Britain have the start of her, and 
later it will be almost impossible for Japan to make 
up for lost time. 

Nevertheless, the race affinities that bind the Jap to 
the Chinaman and the other denizens of Far Asia are 
something in his favour. He may find it very profitable 
to drive a growing trade with China. As a case in 
point, it deserves mention that Japan, since 1895, has 
come to monopolise more and more the cotton-goods 
trade with China. Her manufactures in that line are 
just cheap and rough enough to suit the purse and 



284 The Race is to the Wise 

the taste of the Chinese labouring masses, and that 
means eventually a gigantic trade. 

Whichever way we look at it, though, as a serious 
rival for supremacy — commercial supremacy — Japan 
need not be taken into serious account. There is a 
field for her, certainly, but it is rather limited. Her 
export in rice to Asian countries may grow consider- 
ably. So may her exports of beer, textiles, coal, cop- 
per, sake, the cheaper grades of hardware, and, pos- 
sibly, later on, machinery. Her trade in tea is scarcely 
susceptible of great expansion, because it is relished 
nowhere except in Japan itself and in this country. 
Still, both as a merchant and manufacturer, the Jap 
appears to have at least a fair chance in the future 
Pacific trade. Nobody will be more glad of this 
chance (outside of Japan) than the people of this 
country. 



CHAPTER XIX 
AMERICAN SUPREMACY AND THE SLAV 

On the border of the Pacific, on his own soil, stands 
the Slav, brawny and overbearing. The American's 
struggle with him for supremacy in the Pacific will be 
the hardest of all. It will not be of the same nature 
as that with the other nations. For with the latter 
it will primarily be commercial ; not so with the Rus- 
sian. It will not even be so much a question of fight- 
ing for the possession of material things. No, the 
strife will be of a different character. 

First, politically. The Russian's hegemony over 
Asia must be broken. The Russian article of faith — 
that the whole of the immense continent by right be- 
longs to him and must come under his sway — is to be 
destroyed. His pretension to exclude from Far Asia 
all influence and all trade but his own must be resisted 
and overcome. His type of civilisation must be made 
to yield to ours, or at least confined to his own do- 
minions. His dogma — that the Orthodox Church of 
Russia is to have spiritual rule throughout Asia — 
must be crushed. In fine, the chief issue hereafter be- 
tween the Russian and the American in Asia will be 
for the predominance of Western or Eastern civilisa- 
tion. We have already seen in what consists the 
American equipment for the winning of the suprem- 
acy in the Pacific. Now let us examine the Russian 
armour. 

285 



286 The Race is to the Wise 

It is a fact that between the Slav and the American 
there are certain striking resemblances. The Ameri- 
can nation is numerically one of the strongest in the 
world. Russia exceeds us in numbers, but we have 
the greater rate of increase, and within a generation 
both nations will be equal in population. Since i860 
Russia's population has doubled, ours has trebled. The 
natural resources of Russia, like those of the United 
States, are practically limitless. We have had enor- 
mous territorial growth; the Russian likewise. Dur- 
ing the nineteenth century we have added more than 
2,000,000 square miles to our domain; the Russian has 
added a territory of almost precisely the same circum- 
ference to his country. The American as well as the 
Russian nation has remarkable powers of assimilation, 
a fact which goes far to account for unequalled growth 
on both sides. Here in the United States alien peoples, 
within one, or at most, two, generations, have been 
absorbed into the current of life, sunk, and disappeared 
like snowflakes in the ocean. Russia on her part has 
swallowed up and digested more than one hundred 
nations and tribes. Again, both the American and 
the Russian exhibit a genius for organisation and gov- 
ernment. Without much bloodshed Russia has intro- 
duced new forms of administration in her conquered 
territory of central and northern Asia. In our own 
country, without disorder, new territories have been 
formed and become in a short while self-governing 
states. Lastly, the American as well as the Russian 
possesses vast territory, capable of an enormous in- 
crease in population. The new and unsettled lands 
of the north temperate zone — and that means the zone 
of power — have been divided between them. And 
now, having reached the uttermost limit, they face 



American Supremacy and the Slav 287 

each other from both shores of the Pacific. It is these 
points of resemblance which made a keen-eyed French- 
man, Lavelaye, say : " A hundred years hence, leaving 
China out of the question, there will be two colossal 
powers in the world, beside which Germany, England, 
France, and Italy will be as pigmies — the United 
States and Russia." 

But the contrasts between the two nations are even 
more striking and numerous. The decisive one is the 
difference between their conceptions of the best form 
of government, involving as it does individual ideals of 
life. The American is the supreme representative of 
civil and religious liberty; the Russian is the supreme 
representative of absolutism, both in State and Church. 
American civilisation, erected on the foundations of 
Anglo-Saxon ideals, is the product of the development 
of the individual. It means individual responsibility 
and individual effort. Russian civilisation is based on 
the suppression of the individual. Once the American 
individual should cease to assume his share of effort, 
responsibility, and government, the fabric of our in- 
stitutions would crumble. But, on the other hand, if 
the average Russian should rise politically to the level 
of the average American, Russian institutions could 
no longer exist. 

The Russian form of government, in fundamental 
principles, in ideals and in methods, is diametrically 
opposed to our own. The two systems do not repre- 
sent two different stages of development upon the same 
foundations. They spring from radically different 
conceptions, and they aim at radically different ends. 
Russian and American development on present lines 
will drive the two nations further and further apart, 
and finally must bring on a conflict. The Russian, 



288 The Race is to the Wise 

too, is a bearer of civilisation, but it is of a different 
type. To make room for our own mission of civilisa- 
tion in Asia, we must first curtail or neutralise that of 
the Russian. There is no possibility of the two factors 
working side by side. 

What does the Russian expect to accomplish in 
Asia? He expects to win and to hold the whole con- 
tinent. That is part of the creed of every normal 
Muscovite. The whole of Russian literature is per- 
meated with this idea. The whole Russian nation is 
deeply imbued with the notion that Providence spe- 
cially favours " Holy Russia," and specially despises 
all the rest of the world. 

To summarise the Russian doctrine: the future of 
the world is with the Slav; Russia is The Inevitable; 
the Russians are the only remaining organised people 
on earth ; only in Holy Russia is religious faith per- 
manent; only in the Czar's empire are perpetuated 
order, form, and authority; it is the mission of Holy 
Russia to give back to the peoples of the earth these 
blessings; Holy Russia must advance with the Cross 
for the regeneration of the world, and make the Ortho- 
dox Church paramount throughout the whole of 
Asia. 

These ideas — amounting probably with the Russian 
masses to a powerful instinct — lie at the root of her 
advance in Asia. This advance has been like that of 
a glacier — slow, but resistless. It has reached China. 
Unless prevented by Russia, this nation, backed up, 
let us hope, by Great Britain and Japan, will give 
China and the whole Far East the priceless boon of 
western civilisation, making her population free, 
prosperous, and intelligent. But if Russia gains 
control of China and Asia, these populations will 



American Supremacy and the Slav 289 

remain Asiatic, and their hands, groping for the 
light, will only meet the mailed fist of the Russian 
conqueror. 

True, Russia has stood our friend once or twice. 
During the Civil War she made a naval counter- 
manoeuvre to offset the designs of England and France. 
A few years later, in 1867, she prevailed upon us to 
purchase Alaska, thus strengthening our base on the 
Pacific and curtailing that of Great Britain. Alaska 
at that time was absolutely useless to Russia; but it 
was also useless to us, and it is only since 1898, since 
our acquisition of the Philippines, that this outlying 
territory has assumed value for us. However, leaving 
that aside, what has been Russia's motive in these two 
friendly acts ? That motive was purely and singly her 
hostility to England. She wished to weaken England, 
to checkmate her, and to perpetuate the ill-feeling ex- 
isting at that time between the United States and 
Great Britain. 

This is the place to say a word about England's 
present and future attitude towards Russia. Strangely 
enough, very many Americans take it for granted that 
Great Britain will make common cause with us here- 
after in neutralising or limiting the overweening in- 
fluence of Russia in northern and central Asia. On 
the face of it, there seems to be good ground for such 
an assumption, for, surely, it would appear to be to 
Great Britain's own vital interest to do so. But Eng- 
land's statesmanship has become quite hysterical of 
late, and there is no telling what she may do. With 
England's waning prestige in Asia has come a waning 
ability to see things as they really are. Russia's 
frankly avowed policy has been, and still is, to seize 
India. The former generation of British statesmen, 



290 The Race is to the Wise 

the Palmerstons, Disraelis, Gladstones, Salisburys, for 
forty years past endeavoured to prevent Russia's 
steady, if slow, advance towards Hindostan; they did 
this with varying success. The Russian advance 
guards are now separated from the northern border of 
Great Britain's chief possession by a narrow strip of 
land. The war broke out between Japan and Russia, 
affording England a golden opportunity to balk Rus- 
sian advance in Asia once and forever. With Japan 
England has a formal treaty of alliance. With all 
these circumstances so favourable to England, she has 
not improved her present opportunities. 

What does England mean by that? Are Russia's 
legions to be stopped hereafter, if England misses so 
signally her present opportunity? Are Russia's 
promises to be relied upon? Manchuria proves the 
contrary; it has been proved before on innumerable 
occasions. Is Russia to forego the dream of centuries? 
Is she to content herself with a modus vivendi with 
England? If she wished that, there would have been 
peace — deep and lasting peace — between England and 
Russia before now. Is Russia to gainsay the heart's 
desire of her government and people, the desire to 
bring the Asiatic peoples under her sway and that of 
the Greek Cross? And yet England thinks the Lion 
and the Bear can become friends. 

This is not the age for sentimental politics. Facts 
rule, interests rule — tangible interests — nothing else. 
And will then Russia allow her policy to become a sen- 
timental one ? Hundreds of penny-a-liners in England 
assure us that she will; but will she? Nicholas II., 
personally amiable, well-meaning, and peace-loving 
though he be, is a puppet in the hands of his strong 
advisers, and they all wish anything rather than a per- 



American Supremacy and the Slav 291 

manent compromise with England, even if political 
blindness should go so far in England as to sanction 
Russia's acquisition of an approach to, and a harbour 
on, the Persian Gulf. 

No, the differences between England and Russia 
are too real, too manifold, to yield to sentimental treat- 
ment. They are irreconcilable, just as much as are 
the Russian and the Anglo-Saxon points of view in 
life and politics. This Gordian knot can only be cut 
in one way — with the sword. The present course of 
double-dealing, of carrying water on both shoulders, 
will not avail England much. It is doubtless to the 
detriment of Japan, England's ally, but in the end far 
more to England's own detriment. 

So, then, from the vacillating course which England 
has pursued in her foreign policy during the last few 
years Americans must not look forward with confidence 
to active and able British co-operation in our coming 
struggle for supremacy with the Russian. Moreover, 
England's position in such a struggle will be far more 
vulnerable and difficult than our own. Her Indian 
empire forms a tremendous strategic disadvantage to 
her in this matter. But let us state right here that in 
this coming struggle for commercial and political pre- 
dominance in the Pacific, this country is large and 
powerful enough to do without much active assistance 
on the part of the British cousin. Examination of the 
main facts will reveal this. 

Russia has no islands and no colonies to serve her 
as bases in a possible war in the Pacific. She must 
confine her operations to the mainland. We have seen 
that the Philippines give us a tremendous advantage, 
and that we are the nation owning the chief inter- 
mediate stations of strategic importance between the 



292 The Race is to the Wise 

west coasts of America and Far Asia. Russia's navy 
is small, much smaller now since the Japs have crippled 
it. She has to defend three coast lines, the Baltic, the 
Black Sea, and the Pacific, each separated from the 
other by thousands of miles. Russia's finances are in 
such a bad state that she may fairly be spoken of as 
on the brink of national bankruptcy. She has to strain 
her resources to the utmost to maintain at the present 
size her army (unavailable against us in the event 
of a war) and her navy. We shall increase our 
navy to five or six times the size of that portion of 
the Russian navy which the empire can spare for the 
Pacific. 

The Russian is no navigator. On January 1, 1901, 
Russia's merchant marine consisted of 745 steamers, 
of 364,360 tons, and 2293 sailing vessels, of 269,459 
tons; altogether, therefore, 3038 vessels, with a ton- 
nage of 633,819. This is one-fifth the size of the 
German merchant marine, one-eighth the size of our 
own, and one twenty-fifth that of the British merchant 
marine. The Pacific portion of this is entirely insig- 
nificant. The two Russian ports of Vladivostok and 
Nikolayevsk in the year mentioned were visited by only 
93 vessels. Her Pacific merchant fleet has increased 
since, but it is trifling in comparison with the number 
of vessels to be seen in that ocean belonging to other 
sea-faring nations. 

Russia's industry is small and poorly developed. 
She cannot for a moment hope to compete with us in 
this respect. The only system under which Russia 
can expect to reap any considerable portion of the Far 
Asian trade is by first conquering those countries and 
then rigidly excluding the goods of foreign nations, 
the same system which she pursues in her home mar- 



American Supremacy and the Slav 293 

ket. But, as pointed out before, the coming strug- 
gle between the American and the Russian will be 
not so much a commercial as a political and ethical 
one. 

In his book, " The Problem of Asia," Captain 
Mahan, several years ago, made this point very clear. 

In the foregoing pages we dwelt for a moment on 
the contradictory and irrational Asiatic policy pursued 
of late by Great Britain, a policy so disastrous to Brit- 
ish interests in that part of the world that it must have 
raised many a derisive smile in Russia. But it cannot 
be supposed that this is to be the end of it. The public 
mind of Great Britain during the last decade has be- 
come demoralised by a succession of unfortunate or 
disturbing events. The removal from the scene of 
some of her greatest statesmen, the present lack of 
sagacious and safe political leaders, the enormous 
blunder of the South African war, the overpoweringly 
strong commercial competition of the Americans and 
Germans, and the greatly disturbed condition of her 
tariff policy — these are all things that have made for 
England's weak and exhausted condition at this hour. 
She will and must recover from these blows. Then 
she may prove indeed our valuable ally in Far Asia, 
so far at least as successful opposition to Russian ag- 
gression is concerned. 

There is another contingency worth mention. The 
prospect of a confederation, more or less close, of the 
English-speaking countries of the world appeals to a 
growing number, not only in this country and Eng- 
land, but in the British colonies. W. T. Stead, the 
enthusiastic advocate of this idea, commands a follow- 
ing steadily rising in numbers and influence. Mr. 
Carnegie's views are well known. Many of the fore- 



294 The Race is to the Wise 

most minds, both in England and this country, are in 
agreement on this point. To be sure, there are enor- 
mous difficulties in the way. But the younger brothers 
in the Anglo-Saxon family unmistakably have the ad- 
vantage over the eldest. Australians are no longer 
English, though they remain Anglo-Saxon. The cli- 
mate of Australia has made of that people something 
very much like ourselves, even including the similarity 
with the American temperament — optimistic and dar- 
ing. The same remark applies to British America. 
The Canuck is a good deal more of an American than 
a Briton. 

We find at present six Anglo-Saxon branches, all 
of which are to be numerous and strong — the United 
States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, 
and New Zealand. Four of the six are ranged 
around the Pacific, on the northeast and southwest, 
while on the northwest, the west, at the centre, and 
scattered over its broad surface at strategic points are 
many hundreds of islands under the American or Brit- 
ish flag. Surely this New Mediterranean, which in 
this present century is to become the centre of the 
world's population and the seat of its power, is to be 
an Anglo-Saxon sea. A navy, so large and efficient as 
to deter all evil intentions, will keep it so. The Eng- 
lish-speaking countries are nearly all girt by the sea, 
and hence can dispense with huge standing armies, 
but absolutely need large and powerful navies. It 
may be that Canada will of her own free will join us. 
In any event, it is quite within the bounds of possi- 
bility that, by the middle of this century, a confedera- 
tion of English-speaking countries mutually safe- 
guarding each other's colonial and commercial inter- 
ests and possessions will confront the aggressive Slav 



American Supremacy and the Slav 295 

in Asia. Such a confederation, comprising a popula- 
tion which then will have risen to 200,000,000 and 
will overtop Russia in every essential element of 
strength, would be victorious and resistless by its mere 
weight. 

Meanwhile, whatever the outcome of this present 
war, Russia will issue from it in a sadly weakened con- 
dition. And that will be a telling fact in our coming 
struggle with her in the Pacific. 

There is, however, another possibility, though a 
remote one, to be taken into consideration. Mr. 
Colquhoun, in a recent book, calls attention to it. He 
says : " Will the United States, abandoning the policy 
by which her foreign relations have hitherto been 
guided, follow the example of Britain, or will she con- 
sider what may be termed her immediate material in- 
terest and give the support of her countenance to 
Russia, by following out to a logical conclusion the 
Monroe doctrine? That Russia desires to apply such 
a doctrine to all northern Asia is not to be doubted, 
and if the United States in her new sphere should take 
a similar view of her own interests, we may yet see 
the two Great Powers of the Future, the Great Autoc- 
racy and the Great Democracy, Slav and Teuton, dom- 
inating the Far and Farthest East as two gigantic 
Trusts." 

That, then, expresses a semi-belief on the part of 
the distinguished writer that the United States will 
make common cause with Russia in dominating the 
Pacific. We may probably dismiss such a thought. 
The temper and the political convictions of this nation 
would never sanction such an unholy and unnatural 
alliance. Neither would it be advantageous to us, 
looking at the matter from a baldly material point of 



296 The Race is to the Wise 

view. Russia has nothing to offer us for our friend- 
ship and support in that region. She can only with- 
hold, not give. And yet Mr. Colquhoun's idea seems 
to be shared by a good many of the instructed minds 
of Great Britain. 



CHAPTER XX 
LIFE UNDER NEW CONDITIONS 

It is a truism that we are living in a transition era. 
Nevertheless, its full bearing does not seem to have 
entered the minds of many. These are apt to forget 
that the old is making place for the new; that there 
is not only a regrouping of powers all over the world, 
but a creating of new ones ; that the political and eco- 
nomic commonplaces of the past are, some of them, 
no longer applicable, and that in the range of thought 
and sentiment there is noticeable even more change 
than in material things. 

A striking case in point is the complete transforma- 
tion of diplomatic habits and methods wrought by the 
example of the United States. On the continent of Eu- 
rope it is still the fashion to speak, in a vein of pitying 
irony, of American " shirt-sleeve statesmanship," mean- 
ing by that term the frank and straightforward methods 
adopted and persisted in by this country in its dealings 
with foreign nations. But that does not alter the fact 
that these " shirt-sleeve " methods have proved tri- 
umphant, and, furthermore, that they have first been 
imitated by the scented and laced diplomats of Europe, 
and finally made their own. 

Let us look at some of these new conditions under 
which we live. 

The one great necessity of life is, of course, some- 
thing to eat. Other things being equal, plenty to eat 

297 



298 The Race is to the Wise 

means plenty of power, plenty of prosperity, plenty of 
energy and progress, and, finally, plenty of culture. 
Whoever holds a great surplus of the foodstuffs of the 
world, free to give or to withhold, is the master of the 
world. A simple fact, but fraught with deep meaning 
and generally overlooked. The same remark, though 
in a smaller measure, holds true of a superabundance 
of manufactures. 

In both these essentials the English-speaking nations 
are pre-eminent. Mastery of steam and electricity in 
their applied forms is likewise an Anglo-Saxon pos- 
session. 

The new industrial civilisation has developed a new 
national life, highly organised and highly sensitive, 
with new conditions, new needs, and new possibilities 
for good or evil. The British Empire is the most 
striking exponent of this. It forms an impressive con- 
trast with the Roman Empire of old. Commerce is 
more powerful than British arms to hold the Greater 
Britain together. Oneness of civilisation is the closest 
bond of all. To-day, the differences between life in 
the United States and life in the British Empire are 
but slight. They will steadily diminish. This makes 
in the direction of eventual amalgamation, confedera- 
tion, or alliance. The great stream of life for all the 
English-speaking countries will show a wonderful 
oneness in essentials and chief ideals within the com- 
pass of the twentieth century. 

The sovereign power to-day in all English-speaking 
countries is public opinion; this power has steadily 
gathered momentum during the past fifty years. It 
has overridden formal power of sovereigns and rulers. 
The President of the United States, just as much as 
the crowned head of the British Empire, is powerful 



Life under New Conditions 299 

only in representing a strong public opinion. There 
is no swimming against that tide. He who attempts it 
fails. And this public opinion, as the term is under- 
stood in English-speaking countries, has imposed itself 
even upon the non-English-speaking world. Russia 
herself, autocratic as she certainly is, has not escaped 
the overwhelming force of this factor. Of late years 
she has stood more than once before the world, her 
head bowed in shame. A year ago, after the horrible 
KishinerT massacre, the very man who had instigated 
these atrocities, Minister of the Interior de Plehve, 
tried to escape the opprobrium he had earned, and it 
was the sheer force of western public opinion which 
compelled Russia to order an official investigation, and, 
subsequently, a series of criminal trials. 

Every ruler, every nation, to-day tries to justify 
action at a particular crisis. It was so with us at the 
outbreak of the war with Spain, and it was so with 
Great Britain during her recent war in South Africa. 
The Venezuela incident was another case in point. 
Each of the nations principally interested in that 
" creditor war " made out as good a case as it could to 
satisfy the public opinion of the world. The inter- 
national tribunal at The Hague owes its existence not 
so much to a whim of the Czar as rather to the organ- 
ised public opinion of all the civilised countries, to 
the aroused public conscience. 

The press is another name for public opinion. 
To-day the press has to follow, not lead, public opinion. 
One-man opinion in the press to-day is futile and 
powerless. For weal or woe, public opinion has be- 
come our chief, almost our sole, master. And this 
public opinion is best organised in the English-speak- 
ing countries. To this fact is due a large portion of 



300 The Race is to the Wise 

the supremacy of the English-speaking race, and this 
truth at present is beginning to be dimly felt by the 
non-English-speaking world. By reason of the wide 
circulation of the daily press, and of the immensely im- 
proved methods of news-gathering, the important events 
happening anywhere on the globe are read simulta- 
neously, a few hours later, by millions upon millions, by 
all the nations that lay claim to the term " civilised." 
News is now the swell of a great tide, moving the 
hearts and minds on the whole earth at one and the 
same time. The press of to-day is a factor in our 
civilisation second in importance to none. And who- 
ever has this world-wide public opinion on his side is 
invincible. Governments and kings alike seek to 
square themselves with it. Secretary Hay, at that 
critical time when the ambassadors of all the foreign 
nations were imprisoned in Peking and momentarily 
expecting death, fought his battle to a finish on the 
mere strength of the public opinion of the world. Ten 
years before such a thing would have been impossible ; 
nay, it would not even have been attempted. 

We now speak of world sympathies, and to-day they 
form a most important item in the stock-in-trade of 
every diplomat and statesman, of every ruler and of 
every nation. Each tries to capture this impalpable 
and yet so potent force. The present war strikingly 
illustrates it. Everywhere, in all capitals of the world, 
Japan and Russia, through their accredited representa- 
tives, do their utmost to enlist this world sympathy. 

We speak of world calamities, such as the Indian 
and Russian famines, the Armenian massacres, the 
eruption of Mont Pelee in Martinique, the Spanish 
atrocities in Cuba, our own blunders in the Philip- 
pines and their rectification by means of American 



Life under New Conditions 301 

public opinion. All such catastrophes, all saddening 
events, all heroic conduct or proof of singular nobility 
of feeling, nowadays are immediately commented upon 
and become the common topic of conversation the world 
over. At Santiago, when a victory had been achieved 
that electrified the world, pity tempered triumph, and 
Admiral Philip exclaimed : " Don't cheer, boys ; the 
poor fellows are dying! " And the humane sentiment 
fluttered around the world along the electric wire. 

It is this community of feeling, this final arbitra- 
ment of the good and the wise, which is one of the 
most hopeful signs of our age. Its tendency is to make 
the brutal less brutal, and to make the good better. 

There has grown up a system of international law, 
incomplete and not always adhered to, but furnishing 
a common ethical standard, and to this all civilised 
nations are held by the force of public opinion. There 
is a world's postal union — another bond of fraternity 
binding the nations together — and an enormous step 
forward in eliminating international misunderstand- 
ings and ill will. There are regulations for naviga- 
tion which have the force of law all over the world. 

As a correlative there is a growing interdependence 
among the nations. A pathetic illustration of that 
was the opinion spread among the Boers during their 
long struggle with Great Britain, that if they only 
could hold out until after the presidential election in 
the United States, a turn in the political tide would 
come and favourably affect the peace negotiations with 
Great Britain. v 

The belief is no longer held that a great nation must 
be altogether sufficient unto itself. Indeed, this is no 
longer possible. The interests of the various nations 
intertwine and touch at too many points. In Mecca 



302 The Race is to the Wise 

the cholera breaks out, and at once quarantine is de- 
clared at all the ports, and every nation takes sanitary 
measures to prevent its spread. Russian peasants are 
laid low by the million, hunger, typhus, and the grippe 
having seized them; this means a curse to millions in 
every neighbouring land, and precautions are at once 
adopted. Germany's beet-sugar industry rapidly rises 
to great heights, and German sugar is exported by 
millions of tons to America and elsewhere. This leads 
to frightful losses of the sugar-cane planters, and it 
entails distress for the whole West Indies. We hear 
that Great Britain has harvested so small a wheat crop 
that it would suffice her island population for barely 
three months. At once the cable is set in motion, and 
a few hours later millions of bushels are on the way 
to save Britons from starving. Indeed, it is computed 
that 2,000,000 of our farmers get their living by feed- 
ing 40,000,000 Europeans every year. Europe never 
raises enough to supply her own needs. The farmer 
of North and South America, Australia, and Siberia 
tills his soil for the European consumer. The price of 
bread in London depends on the wheat crop in this 
country, Argentina, India, and Russia. 

The slightest hitch in the economic mechanism of 
the world is felt at once everywhere. When the 
McKinley tariff bill was passed, one of its items pro- 
vided for a practically prohibitive duty on pearl but- 
tons. The next day, several thousands of workmen in 
a single Austrian city were thrown out of employ- 
ment, for their occupation was gone. 

A great crisis is now approaching for this life under 
new world conditions — severe international competi- 
tion. And this coming competition will mean the 
sharpest struggle for existence which the world has 



Life under New Conditions 303 

yet seen. It may retard temporarily the higher and 
better life to come, but out of it will evolve the saner 
and more abundant life of the future. The question of 
mastery must first be solved before an apportionment 
of wealth and influence in accordance with the new 
conditions can take place. This preliminary struggle, 
strictly on Darwinian principles, will in a sense be piti- 
less, as it will be in consonance with natural law — the 
ultimate rule of the fittest. It will weed out the unfit 
nations, and will discipline and develop the fittest. 
Survival will depend more on social efficiency than on 
mere strength. The race will be, not to the strong, but 
to the wise. 

The tendency to absorb small peoples, peoples unable 
to grapple successfully with the new conditions of 
life, unable to compete on even terms with those better 
equipped, is in accordance with the trend of the times. 
We see the workings of this new principle in the 
trust, the syndicate, the " combine," the consolidation 
of every form of industrial life into great systems, 
merging the smaller railway and the smaller factory 
into the larger body, and thus effecting a huge saving 
of time, labour, and money. In its essence this tendency 
is the sign-manual of the new civilisation, the most 
important and far-reaching economical fact. 

It is now recognised that nations have both the right 
and are in duty bound to safeguard common vital in- 
terests, even if by so doing they invade the independ- 
ence of other nations. On this ground, for instance, 
rests the right of international interference in China. 
Suppose Russia wins in this war, and administers a 
crushing defeat to Japan. Russia would not be per- 
mitted to taste the sweets of triumph to the full. The 
civilised nations would interpose if Russia wanted to 



304 The Race is to the Wise 

wipe Japan out of political existence. But there are 
many other cases at hand illustrating the fact that in- 
terference by joint action of the powers, in other 
words, world action, has become an established fact. 
Conditions existing in more or less backward coun- 
tries, conditions threatening the common welfare of 
the world, will no longer be permitted to continue. 
There is a consensus of opinion on that point wher- 
ever printer's ink is abundant. Contagious diseases 
can no longer be allowed to find permanent breeding- 
places in certain countries, starting thence on a crusade 
of death around the world. The yellow-fever centre of 
Cuba was done away with by the friendly action of the 
United States, and millions of lives have been thus 
saved. The bubonic plague, arising in the tropics (the 
"black death" of the Middle Ages), will similarly 
have to be eradicated. At present, this scourge still 
inflicts untold misery and loss of life, even after trav- 
elling thousands of miles away from the sources of 
its origin. The last epidemic of this sort arose in 
eastern Persia, among the dense crowds of pilgrims to 
the shrine of a Sheeite saint, and filtered thence, first, 
to the filthy hovels of densely packed Chinese towns, 
and from there proceeded on its course of devastation all 
over the East and West, completing the circuit of the 
world within a couple of years, and leaving in its wake 
hecatombs of corpses. Joint steps have since been 
taken by the civilised powers to prevent the recurrence 
of such a catastrophe. 

Again, life under these new conditions demands 
the protection of property everywhere. This principle 
is now acknowledged very generally. To cite a case in 
point, hundreds of big corporations, having far-spread- 
ing interests in scores of countries, would have to go 



Life under New Conditions 305 

out of business if their home governments did not pro- 
tect their legitimate proprietary rights. It may be re- 
membered that three of our largest insurance compa- 
nies, doing business in both hemispheres (and, indeed, 
one of them has branch establishments in no fewer than 
48 countries), for a number of years were the object of 
important diplomatic negotiations with the German 
government, the latter having interfered with their 
field of usefulness. But present conditions also de- 
mand the safeguarding of legal rights of sojourners in 
foreign countries. The pending negotiations between 
the United States and Russia, aiming at a fair stand- 
ing in Russian courts for citizens and corporations of 
this country, are a case in point. 

The enormous investments of capital in other coun- 
tries call for, and receive, the protection of the home 
government. That this is one of the legitimate func- 
tions of government is now recognised in international 
law. Indeed, it was one of the first stages that marked 
the advent of an industrial age. As long ago as 1863, 
Napoleon III. made the unsatisfied claims of a French 
banker, Jecker, his pretext for invading Mexico. And 
it was on the same plea that a number of creditor na- 
tions of Europe, with England and Germany at the 
head, intervened last year in Venezuela. 

Since this country became a creditor on a large scale 
in foreign parts, dating since 1897, American moneyed 
interests abroad have begun to play a more and more 
conspicuous figure in our foreign policy. Vast sums 
are now flowing out of American coffers into every 
corner of the world, fertilising existing industries or 
creating new ones. South and Central America will, 
hereafter, be special fields in this direction. China, 
too, will probably get a fair share of this fructifying 



306 The Race is to the Wise 

gold. But the more American gold will go to China 
and Far Asia, the more our statecraft will have to in- 
sist on the maintenance of the " open door." 

A material age, you will say. And truly it is. If 
ever the dollar ruled, it does now. But this material 
age will lead onward and upward to one when the 
leading nations of the globe will be able to afford a 
policy based on higher motives. Without material 
prosperity, without well-assured supremacy in trade 
and manufactures, progress and the ultimate posses- 
sion of higher blessings would not be possible. Let 
that be our consolation. 

The vast majority of Americans have come to recog- 
nise the fact that the United States is now a world 
power, with all that this rather recently coined term 
implies. It is useless longer to inveigh against " ex- 
pansion," for the widening of our territory and of our 
influence is an established fact. The cry of " imperial- 
ism " is heard more and more rarely. It would be 
unjust to the motives of a large body of men, counting 
in their number many of our purest and best, to deride 
them as " idealists " and unpractical dreamers. These 
men perform a very beneficial function in our political 
life — they serve as a ballast to save the ship of state 
from toppling over. They help to quicken the public 
conscience and to keep it from becoming callous. 

But, making all due allowance for this, and leaving 
entirely aside the question whether it has been " a good 
thing " for us to become a world power, we must, 
nevertheless, look the facts in the face. We are a 
world power; expansion is here — we are right in the 
midst of it ; we can no more undo the recent past than 
we can return to the days of our childhood. It is idle 
to deplore this. If it could not be prevented at the 



Life under New Conditions 307 

outset, it must now be accepted as an unalterable fact. 
We have outgrown the garb of youth. Since 1898 we 
have been in the prime of manhood, and we must ac- 
cept, without whimpering, our new responsibilities. 

And, really, much, very much, of this opposition to 
our new policy, our " world policy," is due to misap- 
prehension. For one thing, the very generally accepted 
interpretation of Washington's farewell advice, defin- 
ing it as a warning to keep forever our hands off 
foreign affairs, has been responsible for a good deal of 
it. This interpretation was certainly not warranted by 
the facts. Washington's parting counsel amounted 
merely to this: " Let us mind our own business." 
Advice good enough for any age, and quite applicable 
to present American conditions. But that advice did 
not mean — in fact, could not mean — the abandonment 
of American interests abroad. 

This is the twentieth century, not the end of the 
eighteenth. And consider what changes have been 
wrought within the space of one single century! On 
certain lines more progress was made between 1800 
and 1900 than during the preceding 2000 years. 
When Washington turned his eyes for the last time 
towards Mount Vernon, it took him longer to reach 
home from New York than it would now for any 
American to reach one of the European capitals. The 
world is now much smaller, and our interests of every 
kind touch and interlace at many points with those of 
almost every country under the sun. We cannot, like 
the ostrich, bury our heads in the sand, and pretend not 
to see approaching dangers. 

The attitude of mind bred by this long-continued 
misapplication of Washington's advice, has done us 
untold harm. It led to a studied neglect of golden op- 



308 The Race is to the Wise 

portunities. Of course, there was a time when it was 
necessary for this young and struggling nation to re- 
frain from interference abroad. We had our hands 
full at home, conquering this vast continent. Numeri- 
cally we were too weak, and financially too poor, to do 
anything but develop our own resources. But since 
the eighties we have been strong enough to make our 
voice heard anywhere, if only we had been minded 
that way. We stood by and saw England, France, and 
Germany seize, one by one, the finest tracts of Africa, 
Asia, and Oceanica. The process even of partitioning 
China was fairly under way, when we bethought us, 
late in the day, that this must not be done against our 
wishes. 

Consider the humiliating position of Americans 
abroad all through the nineteenth century! At home, 
the phrase was : Who cares for Europe ? And for this 
indifference shown to Old World opinion they re- 
venged themselves across the water by showing the 
same degree of indifference toward American opinion, 
sympathies, or antipathies. Americans travelling or 
residing abroad, until a very few years ago, were, 
practically, defenceless. Numberless outrages were 
perpetrated on them; in their standing with foreign 
authorities, courts, and private individuals, they were 
not even on a par with the subjects of petty states. 
And through it all, the Starry Banner, of which, at 
home, the American tourist had felt so proud, and 
under the shadows of which he had deemed himself 
safe anywhere, meant no protection to him. The in- 
tervention of our consuls achieved nothing; the 
remonstrances of our diplomatic representatives were 
calmly ignored. The author, during his long stay at 
one of the great European capitals, saw frequent in- 



Life under New Conditions 309 

stances of this offensive and contemptuous disregard 
of American rights, even of rights secured by interna- 
tional treaty. Thank God, conditions in this respect 
have changed since. 

American failure to profit by the experience of other 
countries was another evil due to our former bent of 
mind. This has not yet been cured, but under our new 
conditions there is steady improvement in this line. 
One of the greatest of our public curses, municipal 
misgovernment, would never have attained to such 
heights if we had been willing to mind the lessons 
taught by the successful or unsuccessful administra- 
tion of European towns. And that is but one of the 
many cases in illustration. 

The United States, up to 1898, was, practically, a 
hermit nation, something like Corea. Richard Olney, 
Cleveland's secretary of state, was the first to change 
this. The time was ripe, overripe. The cry of 
" jingo " did not disturb him. It need not disturb us 
to-day. A great nation must pay the penalty of its 
greatness in money, bother, and men. Olney, in his 
writings, first called attention to the unpalatable fact 
that while we expected to reap all the advantages of 
our geographical position and of our great strength 
in population and natural resources, we studiously 
avoided the assumption of the responsibilities that go 
with such a favoured place among the nations of the 
world. 

We are to-day the most forceful and resourceful 
nation on the globe, and is it to be believed that such a 
nation will play the part of a weakling or utter egotist 
by supinely sitting down in its backyard, and letting 
the world drift by? Of course not. American young 
men in increasing numbers will hereafter go abroad to 



310 The Race is to the Wise 

seek wealth, fame, and distinction, as the British cousin 
has been doing for several centuries, and as the German 
cousin, with increasing success, has done for thirty 
years past. 

Even if we would, it is no longer possible for the 
United States to maintain a policy of political isola- 
tion. This is a commercial age, and commercial con- 
siderations are to-day the mainspring of national 
policies. Questions of finance, of tariff, of expansion, 
of colonial policy, of the " open door " dominate poli- 
tics, national and international, because they pro- 
foundly affect industry and the whole material life. 

Bismarck's dictum — made during a tariff war be- 
tween Germany and Russia — that close political rela- 
tions, and even friendships or alliances, with other 
nations are quite feasible, although a state of economic 
war should exist, holds true no longer. The interlac- 
ing of politics with commerce is too intimate for that. 
The Far Eastern problem, on a satisfactory solution of 
which the civilised nations have now fairly embarked, 
is in the main an industrial and commercial one. Great 
Britain acquired her East Indian empire because she 
once had an East Indian trading company. England 
rules Egypt to-day because, in the first place, a mass 
of English capital had been invested there. 

Six years only have gone since the outbreak of the 
war with Spain. But casting a look backwards upon 
that short period, what do we find? We find that 
since then, at every critical stage of the international 
game of politics, the United States has not only been 
one of the players, but indeed, on several momentous 
occasions, the chief player. In China, during the Boxer 
troubles, Americans marched shoulder to shoulder with 
the soldiers of the other great powers. The American 



Life under New Conditions 311 

flag to-day floats over Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the 
Philippines, a part of Samoa, and a number of other 
islands, small in circumference, but of enormous value 
for future expansion. Our insularity is irretrievably 
gone, deplore it who may. 

Although in this war between Japan and Russia we 
are not one of the belligerents, the world recognises 
that in the problems bound up in this struggle the 
United States is to be the greatest factor. To vigorous 
American statesmanship the world is indebted for the 
narrowing down of the theatre of war, and to the 
elimination of some of the dangerous features that 
threatened its spread. But would Mr. Hay's wisdom 
have accomplished this if it had not been felt, nay 
known abroad, that back of him there was an ambi- 
tious, powerful, and yet fair-minded nation? 

The most dangerous thing this nation could do 
would be to allow itself to drift on its course of world 
politics. The only safety for us is to recognise clearly 
the fact that we are " in for it," and that it behooves 
us, as a manly and energetic nation, to play our part 
well and to the full. 

The division of mankind into nations seems to be 
part of an all-wise plan. There must be national self- 
ishness, national push, and, occasionally, even the over- 
riding of other men's formal rights, if there is to be 
permanent progress in this world. Despite the British 
statesman's pithy saw, patriotism has not yet become 
the last refuge of a scoundrel. Nay, there has been no 
time in the world's history when patriotism was a 
virtue so much needed by all the leading nations of 
the globe. 

Righteousness in international affairs — that will be- 
come the chief motto of world policy hereafter. This 



3 1 2 The Race is to the Wise 

principle will be seen to " pay " in the best sense of that 
word. And world-consciousness is already felt a factor 
in world politics which cannot be neglected. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously, every ruler to-day, whether 
owing his mantle of authority to the mere accident of 
birth or to the deliberate choice of his fellow-citizens, 
must and does reckon with this element of strength or 
weakness in his calculations and course of action. 

World-consciousness means, therefore, world-con- 
science as well. As such it will make an element of 
immeasurable force in the weary way upwards pur- 
sued, with many backslidings, by humanity. A world 
policy, therefore, necessarily means progress. The 
narrow selfishness of nationalism will hereafter, not 
indeed be replaced entirely, but controlled and guided, 
by the broader and saner feeling of race responsibility 
and race solidarity. And to that happier and less 
bloody age we may be permitted to look forward with 
joyful anticipation. It may be, as military men tell 
us, that war will never disappear from this globe of 
ours, and that, the dread of war gone, mankind would 
be deprived of a most salutary restraint. But if so, 
let us hope that unrighteous war at least will become 
less and less frequent. 



CONCLUSION 

Within a century the world has seen the United 
States growing from a tiny acorn to a tall and sturdy 
oak; from a small and widely scattered people, hold- 
ing the fringe of the Atlantic border, into the most 
powerful and one of the most populous of nations. 
This is a trite statement, one which has formed the 
main topic for innumerable stump speeches and 
Fourth-of-July orations. It is, nevertheless, so won- 
derful a thing in itself, so wholly unparallelled in the 
entire range of history, that only familiarity with the 
fact has dulled our minds to its true meaning. 

Indeed, we have drifted away from the days of 
small things — drifted in more senses than one. To-day, 
it is not this nation that is afraid of European med- 
dling with things American ; it is Europe that dreads 
American interference with her affairs, dreads hourly 
American intervention in this present war, dreads 
American push and resourcefulness in the coming bit- 
ter struggle for supremacy in the Pacific. 

However buttressed by logic may be the claim of 
our Anti-Imperialists that we would have done better 
not to launch our vessel of state on the troubled seas of 
a world policy, the events themselves have proved 
stronger than any theories. Hereafter, it will not be 
possible for us to keep aloof from European affairs, 
nor, for that matter, from world affairs. 

Devout Christians may deplore the use of force in 
the settlement of international differences, and in the 

313 



314 The Race is to the Wise 

procuring of the necessary elbow-room for the utilisa- 
tion of our gifts and powers as a nation. But our war 
with Spain, in 1898, and our joining in the suppres- 
sion of the Boxer uprising, in 1900, have again dem- 
onstrated that the employment of brute strength is 
still the only thing, in certain well-defined cases, to 
prevent greater evils. Carlyle, in one of his sarcastic 
moods, once spoke of the people of England as 
" mostly fools." With even greater justice, it is to be 
feared, that saying would hold true when applied to 
mankind at large. And " fools," as we know, cannot 
be reasoned with ; they must be coerced. 

There is, however, no valid reason to suppose that 
we are on the way to becoming a soldier-ridden coun- 
try. Our geographical position will mercifully save us 
from the curse of militarism. Indeed our soldiers, 
while they have done much hard fighting with Moros 
and other irrational creatures in the Philippines, have 
been doing just as effective work in that island world 
in the matter of policing and practically instructing 
the natives in the elementary duties of citizenship. 
There, as well as in Cuba and Porto Rico, our army 
has been a highly valuable educational factor, and there 
is good ground for surmising that our regular armed 
force will continue to do similar work hereafter in 
other parts of the world. 

The reader of this book has been presented with a 
rather summary statement of the main underlying 
facts governing conditions in the Pacific spheres of the 
various colonising powers, and of the burning ques- 
tions of the day entering into the whole Pacific prob- 
lem. Anyone acquainted with the state of affairs may 
fitly form his own opinion as to the probable trend of 
future events. The chief aim of the writer has been to 



Conclusion 315 

direct attention to, and stimulate interest in, all the 
elements that make up a problem which will loom 
larger with every hour. 

It has been pointed out that it is not overwhelmingly 
large land forces such as Russia possesses, but naval 
supremacy, which will decide the mastery of the Pa- 
cific. The hope may here be expressed that the under- 
standing obtaining at present between the United 
States, Great Britain, and Japan will continue un- 
brokenly. All three of these powers possess natural ad- 
vantages which will count for much, if properly util- 
ised, in the future development of the Pacific region. 
But, in any event, there is good reason for saying that 
this country will be the dominant factor in the mastery 
of the Pacific. The United States has all the advan- 
tages, qualifications, and some of the ambitions neces- 
sary for the role. Her unrivalled resources and fast- 
increasing population provide the material for future 
greatness. In a word, we are able to win and to hold 
the mastery of the Pacific Ocean and the more impor- 
tant lands contiguous thereto. That will require 
steadiness of policy, boldness of commercial concep- 
tion, and persistence in carrying this out. A navy, 
adequate to play the dominant part in the Pacific, will, 
however, be urgently required. That sacrifice in men 
and money must be made by the patriotic citizens of the 
United States. The revival of our shipping is likewise 
a step which must precede American expansion in the 
Pacific region. That, however, will come of its own 
accord. 

The strength and the weakness of our coming chief 
rivals in the Pacific have been pointed out briefly. One 
remarkable fact, though, must be mentioned in con- 
clusion, viz., the newness of those countries which will 



3 1 6 The Race is to the Wise 

play, presumably, the greatest part in the approaching 
struggle for predominance. Our young republic is, rela- 
tively speaking, the oldest, though our advent on the 
world's stage dates only a few years back. Australia 
was born but yesterday, and her rawness and youth 
may conceal possibilities which at present are not taken 
into account. Japan, though old as the hills, as a 
world power is a creation of to-day. The same re- 
mark applies to Germany, for thirty-four years ago 
she was but a " geographical idea," scarcely able to 
hold her own. Russia again, a decade since, was still 
wholly unformed. Without Witte, without the es- 
tablishment of the gold standard, and without the 
abolishment of her fluctuating currency system, she 
would not have been able to play such an ambitious 
role on the shores of the Pacific. And only since the 
building of her Transsiberian road, a couple of years 
back, has she been able to throw armies into the dis- 
puted territory. 

On the other hand, we see the waning power of 
Great Britain, the stagnant rule (in all likelihood soon 
to pass away) of the Netherlands in the Dutch East 
Indies, the complete extinguishment of the ancient 
colonial power of Spain, and the same fate in store for 
Portugal. 

Thus, then, the early years of the twentieth century 
find the United States best equipped for the approach- 
ing strife. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 



ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT RESPECTING SPHERES OF INFLUENCE 
IN CHINA 

{Signed April 28, i8gg) 
Sir C. Scott to Count Mouravieff : 

The undersigned British Ambassador, duly authorised to that 
effect, has the honour to make the following declaration to his 
Excellency Count Mouravieff, the Russian Minister of Foreign 
Affairs : Great Britain and Russia, animated by a sincere desire 
to avoid in China all cause of conflict on questions where their 
interests meet, and taking into consideration the economic and 
geographical gravitation of certain parts of the empire, have 
agreed as follows : 

1. Great Britain engages not to seek for her own account, or 
on behalf of British subjects, or of others, any railway conces- 
sion to the north of the Great Wall of China, and not to obstruct, 
directly or indirectly, applications for railway concessions in that 
region supported by the Russian government. 

2. Russia, on her part, engages not to seek for her own ac- 
count, or in behalf of Russian subjects, or of others, any railway 
concession on the basin of the Yang-tse, and not to obstruct, 
directly or indirectly, applications for railway concessions in 
that region supported by the British government. 

The two contracting parties, having nowise in view to in- 
fringe in any way the sovereign rights of China on existing 
treaties, will not fail to communicate to the Chinese government 
the present arrangement, which, by averting all cause of com- 
plications between them, is of a nature to consolidate peace in 
the Far East, and to serve primordial interests of China itself. 

(Signed) Charles S. Scott. 

St. Petersburg, April 28, 1899. 

(A copy of the above note was signed at the same time by the Russian 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, " duly authorised to that effect.") 

319 



320 Appendix 

TREATY OF OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE BETWEEN GREAT 
BRITAIN AND JAPAN 

(Signed at London, January 30, 1902) 

The governments of Great Britain and Japan, actuated solely 
by a desire to maintain the status quo and general peace in the 
extreme East, being moreover specially interested in maintain- 
ing the independence and territorial integrity of the Empire of 
China and the Empire of Corea, and in securing equal oppor- 
tunities in those countries for the commerce and industry of all 
nations, hereby agree as follows : 

Article I. The high contracting parties, having mutually 
recognised the independence of China and Corea, declare them- 
selves to be entirely uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies 
in either country. Having in view, however, their special in- 
terests, of which those of Great Britain relate principally to 
China, while Japan, in addition to the interests which she pos- 
sesses in China, is interested in a peculiar degree politically, as 
well as commercially and industrially, in Corea, the high con- 
tracting parties recognise that it will be admissible for either of 
them to take such measures as may be indispensable in order to 
safeguard those interests if threatened either by the aggressive 
action of any other power, or by disturbances arising in China 
or Corea, and necessitating the intervention of either of the 
high contracting parties for the protection of the lives and prop- 
erty of its subjects. 

Article II. If either Great Britain or Japan, in the defence of 
their respective interests as above described, should become in- 
volved in war with another power, the other high contracting 
party will maintain a strict neutrality, and use its efforts to pre- 
vent other powers from joining in hostilities against its ally. 

Article III. If in the above event any other power or powers 
should join in hostilities against that ally, the other high con- 
tracting party will come to its assistance and will conduct the 
war in common, and make peace in mutual agreement with it. 

Article IV. The high contracting parties agree that neither 
of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate 
arrangements with another power to the prejudice of the inter- 
ests above described. 

Article V. Whenever, in the opinion of either Great Britain 
or Japan, the above-mentioned interests are in jeopardy, the 



Appendix 3 2 1 

two governments will communicate with each other fully and 
frankly. 

Article VI. The present agreement shall come into effect 
immediately after the date of its signature, and remain in force 
five years from that date. 

In case neither of the high contracting parties should have 
notified twelve months before the expiration of the said five 
years the intention of terminating it, it shall remain binding 
until the expiration of one year from the day on which either of 
the high contracting parties shall have denounced it. But if, 
when the date fixed for its expiration arrives, either ally is 
actually engaged in war, the alliance shall, ipso facto, continue 
until peace is concluded. 

In faith whereof the undersigned, duly authorised by their 
respective governments, have signed this agreement, and have 
affixed thereto their seals. 
Done in duplicate at London, the 30th January, 1902. 
(L. S.) Lansdowne, 

His Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs. 
(L. S.) Hayashi, 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plen- 
ipotentiary of His Majesty the Emperor 
of Japan at the Court of St. James. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Acre, 166, 195 

Alaska, sale of, 5 ; lumber 
supply in, 151, 232 ; map of 
coal fields, 234 

Aleutian islands, 233 

Alexander III., Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

American emigration to Can- 
ada, 55 

America, South, see South 
America 

American trading methods in 
China, 116 

American trade with war zone, 

29 
Amoor, 202 

Anglo-Saxon branches, 294 
Annam, 240 
An Ping, 81 
Anti-Imperialists, 313 
An Tung, 42 
Apostolov, Russian battleship, 

7 

Arable public lands, exhaus- 
tion of, in the United States, 
55 

Argentina, immigration, 164; 
statistics of, 177 

Artel, 138 

Asahi, Japanese battleship, 7 

Asama, Japanese battleship, 7 

Asuncion, 197 



Attu, 233 

Austin, O. P., on American 
trade in the war zone, 29 

Australasia, 206 

Australia, 207; statistics, 260; 
rainfall map of, 261; Com- 
monwealth of, 262; emigra- 
tion from, 262 

Average wages, in America 
and Germany, 60 

B 

Balance of trade, in favour of 
the United States, 58 

Bali, 219 

Baltic Canal, vessels passing 
through and tolls collected, 
160 

Baltic provinces of Russia, 
131 

Banca, 220 

" Bannermen," in China, 108 

Barrett, John, quoted, 209 

Bases of supply, Russian, 11 

Bashi Channel, 72 

Battle fleet, Japanese, 7; Rus- 
sian, 7 

Beet-sugar industry, German, 
302 

Benton, Thomas H., 213 

Beresford, Lord, quoted from, 
112 

Bering Strait, 233 



325 



326 



Index 



Berlin, Congress of, 25; 
Deutsche Bank of, growth 
of, 268 

Bermudas, 158 

Beveridge, Senator, quoted, 
253 

Billiton, 220 

Bungo Channel, 71 

Bismarck, dictum of, 310 

"Black Flags," 81 

Boer war, 9, 301 

Bolivia, statistics of, 171 

Borneo, 219 

Borodino, Russian battleship, 7 

Boxers, 37, 51 

Boxer uprising, 9, 89, 92 

Brazil, statistics of, 172-174; 
immigration in, 180-182 

British Columbia, 151 ; data of 
production, 259 

British decadence, 253; Em- 
pire, 298; East India Com- 
pany, 216; merchant-marine, 
255 ; possessions in the Pa- 
cific, 204 ; superiority in cot- 
ton industry, 257; trade with 
war zone, 30 

Broughton Channel, 72 

Bubonic plague, 304 

Buenaventura, 196 

Buenos Ayres, 177 

Buelow, Count von, 37, 96, 163 



Cali, 196 

Canada, Dominion of, foreign 

trade of, 258 
Caribbean Sea, 147, 157, 181 
Carlyle, Thomas, 314 
Carnegie, Andrew, 293 
Caroline Islands, 237 



Cassini, Count, 26 

Cauca, 196 

Celebes, 219 

Chamberlain, " Joe," 64 

Characteristics, Chinese, 90-92 

Chemulpo, 13, 77 

Cherokee reservation, 55 

Chi Hli, Chinese province, no 

Chile, statistics of, 175 

Chilkat river, 233 

China, "open door" in, 32-34; 
" spheres of interest," 35 ; 
integrity of, 46 ; dismember- 
ment of, 48, 50 ; area and 
population of, 92 : tabulated 
statement by provinces, 93 ; 
density of population, 93 ; 
territorial losses of, 95-96 ; 
railroads of, 97 ; mineral re- 
sources, 98: agricultural data 
of, 99 ; industries of, 100 ; 
foreign trade of, 100-101 ; 
revenues of , 101-102; expend- 
itures, 102-103; foreign debt, 
103; imperial post office, 103; 
statistics of imports, 104 ; 
educational institutions of, 
105; military organisation of, 
107-109; its reform, no ; rail- 
road projects in, 120 

Chinese characteristics, 90-9.2 

Chinese indemnity of 1900, 40 

Chin Kiang, 202 

Chino-Japanese war of 1894-95, 
23, 71, 107 

Chin-Yen, Japanese battleship, 

7 
Circular letter, in behalf of 

" open door " in China, 36-37 
Civil War, American, 9 
Clay, Henry, quoted, 150 



Index 



327 



Coal, American, abundance of, 
59; beds of Hu Nan, 100; 
deposit of, at Po Shan, 100 

Columbia, government of, 146; 
statistics of, 169 

Colorado River, 201 

Colquhoun, A. R., quoted, 295 

Columbia River, 201 

Commercial export schools of 
Hamburg, 186 

Confucius, 86 

Congress, agricultural, held at 
Rome, 163 

Consolidation of English-speak- 
ing race, 293 

Continental tariff-union, 163 

Cook Inlet, 234 

Copper River, 234 

Cordilleras, 196 

Corea, 11, 13, 15, 16, 32; map 
of, 21 

Cossacks, 15 

Costa Rica, statistics of, 169 

Cotton industry, British supe- 
riority in, 257 

Cousin. Victor, quoted, 148 

Cuba, reciprocity treaty with, 
158 

" Culture system" of Japan, 
218 

Cushing, Caleb, 34 



Dalny, 8, 96 

Danish Antilles, 159 

Davidson, Prof., quoted, 233 

Day, Dr. Clive, 217 

Diplomatic correspondence be- 
tween Japan and Russia, 19- 
20 



Disadvantages, our, in trade 
with South America, 187-188 

Disconto Society, 280 

Dismemberment of China, 48, 
50 

Djinghis Khan, 87 

Dutch East Indies, 207; statis- 
tics of, 216-227; Chinese 
question in, 221; Atchinese 
war in, 222; Colonial army, 
222; the problem of heritage, 
224 

Dutch New Guinea, 219 

Dvenadsat, Russian battle- 
ship, 7 



Earnings, Japanese, annual 
average, 18; do., Russian, 18 

Ecuador, statistics of, 180 

Ekaterina II., Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Emerson, H., 235 

Emigration, American, to Can- 
ada, 55 

Emporor Alexander II., Rus- 
sian battleship, 7 

Emporor Nicholas I., Russian 
battleship, 7 

Energy, productive, statistics 
of, 60 

English-speaking race, consol- 
idation of, 293 

European manufactures, in- 
crease of, 57 

" Expansion," 306 

Exports, American, growth of, 
to war zone, 29; to Russia, 
30; to European countries, 
126 



328 



Index 



Far Eastern problem, 310 

Farewell advice, Washing- 
ton's, 307 

Fashoda, 50 

Fiji Islands, 237 

Formosa, 47, 71; map of, 79; 
colonisation of, by Japan, 80- 
82; statistics of, 81 

France Militaire, periodical, 
11 

Fraser river, 201 

Frye, Senator, 62 

Fuji, Japanese battleship, 7 

G 

German-Brazilian press, 183 
German emperor, his " yellow 

peril " cartoon, 85 
German reply to Secretary 

Hay's circular note, of 1900, 

37 

Germany, as our rival in the 
Pacific, 53; industrial rise of , 
267; her foreign investments, 
267; her trade relations with 
the United States, 268; her 
commerce in the Pacific, 
269-271; colonies of and cot- 
ton production of, 272; ap- 
propriations, 275; consular 
service, 279; beet-sugar in- 
dustry of, 302 

Gh e org i Pobiedononostseff , 
Russian battleship, 7 

Gladstone, W. E., quotation 
from, 61 

Glutted markets, at home, 63 

Golden Gate, 200 

Golushovsky, Count, 163 



Great Britain, foreign invest- 
ments of, 267 
Greene, General Francis V., 6, 

25 
Guam, 235 
Guamote, 196 

H 

Hague, The, tribunal, 299 
Hai Nan, 97 

Hale, Senator, quoted, 243 
Hamburg, commercial export 

schools of, 18$ 
Hang Yang, iron works of, 100 
Han Kow, 100 
Harbin, 10, 12 
Hart, Sir Robert, 101, no 
Hashiguchi, Jikei, 3 
Hatsuse, Japanese battleship, 

Havana, 240 

Hawaii, 61, 236 and subs., 
map of, 237 

Hay, Secretary, 22, 35, 40, 47; 
his diplomacy regarding 
China, 36 and subs.; his 
note during siege of Pekin 
legations, 38; circular note 
at outbreak of Russo-Japa-» 
nese war, 43, 277 

Hayashi, Baron, 15 

Hayes, President, quoted, 149, 

i55 
Hayti, 160, 181 
Herendeen Bay, 235 
Hoang Ho, 122, 202 
Homestead, Pa., data about, 

64 
Hondo, Japanese province, 71 
Honduras, statistics of, 169 
Hong Kong, 47, 238, 264-265 



Index 



3 2 9 



Humboldt, Alexander von, 213 
Hu Nan, coal beds of, 100 
Hu Pu, 101 

I 

•' Idealists," 306 

Idzumo, Japanese battleship, 7 

Immigration, South American, 

182 
" Imperialism," 306 
Indemnity, Chinese, of 1900, 40 
Indo-China, 207 
Inland navigation of the 

United States, data relating 

to. 62 
Integrity of China, 46 
Investments, foreign, of Great 

Britain and Germany, 267 
Iron deposits in United States, 

59; works in Hang Yang, 100 
Iwate, Japanese battleship, 7 

J 

Japan, awakening of, 4 ; 
national debt of, 16; annual 
average earnings in, iS; 
diplomatic correspondence 
between Russia and, 19; 
population and area of, 20, 
71; agricultural products 
of, 72-73; revenues of, 73; 
Sea of, 72; wages, 73-74; 
scale of living, 74; industry 
and commerce of, 75-77; 
mineral wealth of, 77; statis- 
tics of, 75-78; public edu- 
cation, 78; press, 78; parlia- 
ment of, 79; " manifest 
destiny " of, 84; as our rival 
in the Pacific, 283-285 



Japanese army, 8, 77; battle 
fleet, 7; cavalry, 16; diet, 10; 
immigration to Formosa, 81; 
railroads, 14, 76; shipping, 
76-77; trade with United 
States, 30; war loans, 18 

Java, 210, 219 and subs. 

Jecker, French banker, 305 

Jujuy, 194 

K 

Kamtchatka, 72, 117 

Kaneko, Baron Kentaro, 26 

Kau Lung, 47 

Kee Lung, 80 

Kenai peninsula, 234 

Kiao Chao, 54, 96, 120; rail- 
roads there, 275; exploiting 
the adjoining province, 276 

Kiushiu, one of main isles of 
Japan, 71 

Knackfus, Professor, 85 

Kniaz Suvoroff , Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Kurile Strait, 72 

Kwang Chau Wan, 97 



Labour cost, in United States, 

59 

Lands, public arable, exhaus- 
tion of, in the United States, 
55 

La Perouse Strait, 72 

La Plata River, 179 

Las Cuevas, 195 

Latin-America, statistics, 164 

Lesseps, 144 

Liao Tung, 13, 47 

Liberalising element in China, 
49 



33' 



Index 



Li Hung Chang, no; quoted 

from, 115 
Lima, 195 
Lombok, 219 
Los Angeles, 240 
Louisiana Purchase, 144 

M 

Madagascar, 254 

Madura, 219 

Mahan, Captain, 4; quoted, 
I 59> 2 37; cited, 293 

Malay peninsula, 207 

Manchuria, 8, 10, 12, 19; 
American trade with, 41 

Manchus, dynasty of the, in 
China, 49 

Manila, 238 

Manufactures, European, in- 
crease of, 57 

Manufacturing supremacy of 
the United States, 58 

Markets, American, access to, 
60; glutted, at home, 63 

Martinique, 300 

Mazatlan, 212 

McKinley, President, 85; tariff 
bill, 302 

Mecca, 301 

Me Kong river, 202 

Melville, Geo. W., 156; quoted, 
156 

Mendoza, 195 

Mexican Tehuantepec rail- 
road, 193 

Mexico, 9; statistics of, 168; 
invasion of, 305 

Mikasa, Japanese battleship, 
7 

Miles, General Nelson A., 6, 8, 
24 



Mississippi Valley, 149 

Moluccas, 219 

Monroe doctrine, 145, 166 

Montevideo, 197 

Mont Pelee, 300 

Morley, John, 23 

Mortality statistics, military, 

during recent campaigns, 9 
Mukden, n, 12, 42 
Mulhall, quotations from, 57 



N 



Nagasaki, 76 

Napoleon L, 144 

Napoleon III., 305 

Naval statistics, 244-248 

Navarin, Russian battleship, 7 

Netherlands-India, 216 

" New Mediterranean," 294 

New Zealand, 206; statistical 

data, 262 
Nicaragua Canal project, 145 
Nicaragua, statistics of, 168 
Nippon Yusen Kaisha, 76 
Norman, Henry, 27 



Ocean carriage of various na- 
tions, 61 

Oceanica, 210 

Okhotsk Sea, 202 

Oklahoma, 55 

Olney, Richard, 309 

44 Open door," American policy 
of, as regards China, 32-44 

" Opium War," 89 

Oregon, acquisition of, 232 

Oroya, 195 

Orthodox Church of Russia, 
285 



Index 



33 1 



12, 13, 15, 47, 



Pacific, British possessions in 
the, 204; American suprem- 
acy in the, 204 

Panama Canal, 53, 61, 122; his- 
tory of the project, 143-146; 
consequences of its comple- 
tion, 148-15 1 ; prospective 
shipping through it, 160; 
map of isthmus, 154 

Panama Company, 145 

Pan-American railway, 189; 
mileage of, 191; remeasure- 
ment of, 192 

PangoPango, 238 

Paraguay, statistics of, 180 

Patagonia, 211 

Pearl Harbour, 238 

Peking Gazette, 101 

Peninsula, Malay, 207 

Pepo Hwan, 80 

Pepper, Chas. M., 190 ; report 
of, 192 

Pernambuco, 197 

Perry, Commodore, 4, 35, 70 

Peru, statistics of, 176 

Petropavlovsk, Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Pfeil, Count J., 217 

Philip, Admiral, quoted, 301 

Philip II. of Spain, 143 

Philippines, acquisition of, 35, 
61 ; map of, 239 ; as a dis- 
tributing centre, 256 

Pierce, President, 4 

Poland, Russian, 131 

Poltava, Russian battleship, 7 

Population, density of, in the 
various continents, 205 

Portage Bay, 235 



Fort Arthur, 

96 
Porto Rico, 61, 158 
Port Townsend, 237 
Portugal, her waning colonial 

power, 316 
Posadas, 197 
Posadowsky, Count, 163 
Po Shan, coal deposits of, 100 
Powell, Major, 55 
Prinetti, Italian statesman, 163 
Public opinion, force of, 298- 

299 
Puget Sound, 237 



Quito, 178, 196 



Reciprocity treaty between 
Cuba and United States, 158 

Reservation, Cherokee, rush 
into, 55 

Richthofen, Prof, von, regard- 
ing China's resources, 98 

Rio Grande do Sul, 183 

Roman Empire, 298 

Roosevelt, President, 147 

Rostislav, Russian battleship, 
7 

Retwisan, Russian battleship, 



7 
Russia, as 
bases of 



a Pacific power, 4 ; 

supply, 11 ; annual 
average earnings of, 18 ; dip- 
lomatic correspondence be- 
tween Japan and, 19-20 ; re- 
lations with United States, 5; 
area, population, and density 
thereof, 128 ; statistics, 129 ; 
trade with United States, 



33 2 



Index 



131 ; Baltic provinces of, 131; 

Orthodox Church of, 285 ; 

merchant-marine of, 292 
Russian army, 8; available 

forces, 13 ; battle fleet, 7; 

budget, 17; finances, 28; 

government monopolies, 17; 

imports, 30; national debt, 

17; revenues, 16; soldier, of 

interior, 16 
Russia's foreign creditors, 17; 

reply to Secretary Hay's 

note of February 10, 1904, 44 
Russo-Turkish war, 9 



Sacramento River, 201 

Saghalien, 72 

Salvador, statistics of, 170 

Samoa, 237 

San Diego, 233 

Sandwich Islands, 237 

San Francisco, 213 

Santa Catarina, 184 

San Stefano, treaty of, 25 

Santiago, 194 

Santo Domingo, 159, 181 

Sao Paulo, 185 

Sea of Japan, 72 

Sevastopol, Russian battleship, 

7 

Seward, William H., 151, 213 

Siam, 207 

Siberia, 8, 12, 16; as an Amer- 
ican market, 134; cereal pro- 
duction of, 134; immigration 
into, 136-137; inducements 
offered, 209 

Sickles, General Daniel E., 
6, 24 



Si Kiang River, 202 

Silk, culture of, in China, 99 

Singapore, 238, 263 

Sinope, Russian battleship, 7 

Sissoi Veliky, Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Sitka, 237 

Shanghai, commercial treaty 
of, 42; restitution of, 97; new 
industries of, 100 

Shan Si, mines of, 121 

Shan Tung, Chinese province 
of, 47, 96; as exploited by 
Germany, 54, 120 

Shibuzawa, Baron, 77 

Shikishima, Japanese battle- 
ship, 7 

Shikoku, one of main isles of 
Japan, 71 

Shilka, 202 

Shimonoseki, treaty of, 25 

"Shirt-sleeve " statesmanship, 
297 

Slava, Russian battleship, 7 

Smith, Rev. Arthur H., 51 

Society Islands, 237 

South Africa, 294 

South America, immigration, 
German, Italian, etc., 182; 
total foreign trade, 185; 
statistical data, 164; maps 
of, 170 and 173 

Spanish-American war, senti- 
ments aroused, 166 

Spheres of interest in China, 

35 

Stanley, Henry M., 57 

Statesman's Year-Book, quot- 
ed, 246 

Stead, W. T. , 293 

Steever, Col. E. Z., 192 



Index 



333 



Suez Canal, 144; neutralisation 
of, 155; tonnage of vessels 
passing through it, 160; ex- 
tortionate tolls, 161 

Sumatra, 219 

Summer Palace, 89 

Supply of raw materials in 
United States, 60 

Sydney, 238 



Tai Nan Fu, 81 

Takahira, Kogoro, 26 

Takashima, coal of, 76 

Ta Kau, 81 

Tamerlane, 87 

Tarn Sui, 80 

Taquary River, 184 

Ta Lien Wan, 47, 96 

Tariff bill, McKinley, 302 

Tariff-union, Continental, 163 

Tavrichesky, Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Taylor, James W., cited, 205 

Tchesme, Russian battleship, 7 

Tea, culture of, in China, 99 

Tehuantepec railroad, 193 

Tien Tsin, 97 

Timor, 219 

Titicaca, Lake, 194 

Togo, Admiral, 13 

Tokiwa, Japanese battleship, 7 

Tonkin, 254 

Tracy, Secretary, 156 

Trade, methods of American, 
in China, 116; American, 
with war zone, 29; balance 
of, in the United States, 58; 
foreign, of Canada, 258; our 
disadvantages in, with South 
America, 187-188 



Trade relations, American, 
with Russia, 30-32 

Transsiberian railroad, 11-13, 
14, 18, 22; reasons for build- 
ing it, 135; deficit of, 135; 
defalcations in construction 
of, 19 

Tribunal, The Hague, 299 

Tri Svititelia, Russian battle- 
ship, 7 

Tropical markets, 58 

Trusts and syndicates, 303 

Tsarevitch, Russian battleship, 
7 

Tsi An, the dowager Empress 
of China, 38 

Tsi Nan Fu, 120 

Tsing Tao, 120 

Tupiza, 194 

Tutuila, 238 

Tyler, President, his letter for 
an "open door" in China, 

32-34 

U 

Unalaska, 237 
Unga Island, 235 
United States, trade of, with 
Japan, 30 ; iron deposits of, 

59 ; Louisiana Purchase by, 
144 ; labour cost in, 59; man- 
ufacturing supremacy of, 58; 
supply of raw materials of, 

60 ; exports to and imports 
from South and Central 
America, 168-181 ; suprem- 
acy in the Pacific, 204 ; trade 
with Asia and Australasia, 
241 

Uraga, 76 

Uruguay, river, 197 ; statistics 
of, 179 



334 



Index 



Uspallata Pass, 194 
Ussuri, 202 



Valparaiso, 194 
Vanderlip, Frank A., 17, 28 
Venezuela, statistics of, 171 ; 

foreign intervention, 305 
Victoria, British Columbia, 259 
Vienna, Congress of, 216 
Villa Encarnacion, 197 
Vladivostok, 8, 12 
Vosberg, Rekow, Dr., quoted 

118 

W 

Wages, average, in America 

and Germany, 60 
Wake Island, 235 
Walker, Admiral, quoted, 238 
War zone, trade statistics of, 

29; British trade with, 30; 

United States trade with, 29 
Webster, Daniel, cited, 236 
Wei Hai Wei, 47, 96, 121 
Wei Hsien, coal beds of, 100 
West Indies, 180 



Wheeler, General Joseph, 6, 

24 
Witte, Russian statesman, 53, 

316 
World's statistics in cotton 

industry, 257 
Wright, Carroll D., quoted, 62 
Wu Ting Fang, 40; quoted 

from, 113 



Yakumo, Japanese battleship, 

7 

Yang Tse, 9S, 122, 202 

Yashima, Japanese battleship, 
7 

"Yellow peril," 83 

Yezo, one of main isles of Ja- 
pan, 71 

Yokohama, 212, 238 

Yokosuki, 76 

Yuan Shi Kai, 107 

Yukon, 202 



Zymotic diseases, 10 



7 81 






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